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CANDACE   WHEELER 


YESTERDAYS 

In    a   Busy   Life 


BY 

CANDACE   WHEELER 


ILLUSTRATED 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS   PUBLISHERS 

NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 


YESTERDAYS  IN  A  BUSY  LIFE 

Copyright,  1918,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  October.   1918 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

I.  "WlNTERGREEN"      ............  I 

II.  IN  THE  BEGINNING     ...........  28 

III.  MARRIAGE  AND  BROOKLYN  .........  65 

IV.  "NESTLEDOWN"      ............  i°9 

V.  MY  NEW  YORK  YEARS  ..........  134 

VI.  THE  CIVIL  WAR  PERIOD     .........  154 

VII.  GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE    .......  175 

VIII.  THE  SOCIETY  OF  DECORATIVE  ART  ......  209 

IX.  "THE  ASSOCIATED  ARTISTS"    ........  231 

X.  ONTEORA    ...............  268 

XL     MARK  TWAIN     .............  324 

XII.  THE  COLUMBIAN  EXPOSITION  ........  34° 

XIII.  ANDERS  ZORN     .............  358 

XIV.  A  SEASON  IN  LONDON     ..........  37  1 

XV.  A  SUMMER  IN  "BROADWAY"    ........  399 

XVI.  POSTLUDE       ..............  416 


550G01 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

CANDACE  WHEELER Frontispiece 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT Pacing  p.  122 

ELIZABETH  B.  CUSTER "       172 

GENERAL  GEORGE  ARMSTRONG  CUSTER    ....  "       172 

WILLIAM  M.  CHASE "       244 

MRS.   CLEMENS  AND  THE  CHILDREN,   HARTFORD, 

CONNECTICUT,  1884 "       326 

MARK  TWAIN  AT  FIFTY "       336 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL  AT  FORTY "       372 

ROBERT  BROWNING "       392 


YESTERDAYS 

IN  A  BUSY  LIFE 


YESTERDAYS 

IN  A   BUSY  LIFE 


WINTERGREEN 

TN  writing  the  story  ot  one's  life  the  instinct  is 
*  to  begin  where  one  stands,  at  the  quiet  resting- 
place  where  all  the  issues  of  life  are  finally  gathered. 

To  the  present  years,  which  are  almost  un- 
believably good  to  me,  and  to  the  future,  I  have 
given  a  new  setting — a  winter  home  in  Georgia 
where  everything  I  plant  grows  into  beauty  with 
almost  audible  joy,  where  everything  I  plan  falls 
into  a  delightful  whole,  and  where  the  friendships 
I  have  made  are  like  a  new  blossoming  of  life. 
All  this  came  to  me  with  an  air  of  whim,  quite 
unbecoming  to  my  years.  I  saw  its  unbecoming- 
ness  in  the  faces  of  my  old  friends,  whose  ex- 
clamations of  surprise  sounded  in  my  ears  like 
remonstrances.  They  spelled,  "At  your  age!" 

i  i 


YESTERDAYS 

At  my  age  it  becomes  increasingly  difficult  to 
deal  with  the  new  position  in  which  one  finds  one- 
self— so  much  behind  and  so  little  before;  and 
certainly,  if  a  certain  degree  of  usefulness  and 
dignity  has  been  maintained  throughout  life,  one 
would  like  to  plan  a  graceful  exit. 

We  are  told  that  when  a  bird's  wings  grow  old 
and  its  body  too  weak  for  happy  migration  it 
looks  for  and  creeps  into  some  small,  inclosed 
solitude.  There  it  remains,  and  no  one  knows 
when  its  little  spark  of  life  goes  out  into  the  great 
force  of  animate  intelligence,  to  be  finally  re- 
fashioned and  repartitioned  and  launched,  in  new 
shape,  into  life  again.  This  final  seclusion  and 
secrecy  is  a  part  of  the  bird-wisdom  which  air- 
dwelling  and  sky-flights  have  taught  them;  and, 
since  we  are  learning  to  fly  like  birds,  perhaps  we 
shall  yet  learn  to  die  comfortably,  decently,  and 
confidently,  without  offense  or  anguish  to  our 
friends  or  to  the  world. 

But  if  I  unconsciously  planned  for  seclusion  in 
my  Georgia  home,  I  reckoned  without  my  host; 
for  during  the  nine  years  of  my  occupation  I  have 
been  constantly  contriving  and  building  new  bed- 
rooms and  adding  to  kitchen  and  dining-room, 
until  now  my  retreat  houses  three  generations. 
Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  its  being  an  individual 
venture,  planned  for  myself  alone,  I  was  greatly 
encouraged  and  abetted  by  a  friend  still  in  the  hey- 
day of  life,  who  tempted  me  with  a  joint  forty 


"WINTERGREEN" 

acres  of  pine  and  magnolia  woods,  sweet  with 
flower  growths  of  various  delightsomeness. 

' '  Wintergreen  "  is  a  great  success,  and,  like  all 
things  of  virtue,  a  constantly  increasing  one.  And 
so,  just  now  and  here,  I  am  beginning  the  story 
which  my  children  and  friends  are  always  urging 
me  to  write — the  story  of  my  life. 

I  fancy  that  every  soul  of  us  could  write  a  book 
which  the  world  would  read,  if  only  we  dared  to 
tell  the  exact  truth  about  ourselves  and  our  hap- 
penings, and  so  give  a  perfect  reflection  of  one 
human  life. 

But  who  of  us  does  dare  to  do  that  ?  Our  ideas 
about  ourselves,  our  very  standards  of  good  or 
evil,  inevitably  make  us  hypocrites.  The  traits 
which  would  be  interesting  in  a  life-story,  we  keep 
in  shadow,  or  carefully  cover  up.  I  am  conscious 
of  it  in  every  page  I  write,  and  I  would  no  more 
tell  of  my  own  mistakes  and  tempers  than  I  would 
parade  them  as  belonging  to  my  dearest  friend, 
not  half  as  soon,  indeed,  for  we  find  various  ex- 
cuses for  relating  little  accidents  of  behavior  in 
our  friends.  We  even  pride  ourselves,  to  our- 
selves, upon  the  cleverness  of  our  own  conclu- 
sions. 

Every  human  being  is  new  in  some  of  his  per- 
sonal idiosyncrasies  to  every  other  human  being, 
and  if  this  difference  is  brought  out  with  absolute 
fidelity  it  is  of  interest.  If  we  should  say  what 
we  really  thought  and  tell  what  we  really  did  in 
3 


YESTERDAYS 

the  different  befallings  of  life,  we  should  be  con- 
sidered original,  to  say  the  least. 

If  I  tell  a  pathetic  or  laughable  or  interesting 
tale  of  something  I  have  seen  or  experienced  in 
my  ninety  years  of  travel  along  the  highways  of  life 
some  one  is  sure  to  say,  "You  must  write  that!" 
Or,  if  it  is  an  intimate  story  of  some  well-known 
man  or  woman  long  since  dead,  or  an  absurd 
recollection  of  childhood,  or  if  I  recall  some  of 
my  experiences  in  the  Old  World — of  meeting 
Browning  at  Lady  Jeune's  in  London,  and  taking 
mental  notes  of  him  as  he  ate  and  talked,  and 
thinking  that  on  the  surface  it  was  a  common- 
place personality — some  one  always  says:  "You 
should  write  that  down!  You  ought  to  write 
your  life!  You  have  seen  so  many  interesting 
people,  and  done  so  many  interesting  things!" 

"But  we  have  all  lived,"  I  protest,  "and  if  we 
all  wrote,  why,  the  world  would  be  full  of  personal 
stories,  most  of  them  dull." 

"But  these  modern  days  are  so  commonplace," 
some  one  objects,  "and  we  all  see,  and  know,  and 
live  them.  You  remember  things  which  are  dif- 
ferent, and  which  happened  before  we  were 
born." 

Truly  so,  and  I  do  realize  that  the  old  times 
are  different  from  this  present  generation  and  con- 
sequently of  peculiar  interest.  I  remember  that 
once  when  we  visited  Lowell  in  Cambridge  I 
admired  a  tall  mahogany  desk  in  his  library,  with 
4 


"WINTERGREEN" 

closed-in  book-shelves  above.  It  was  a  beautiful 
thing,  with  shining  panels  in  which  the  experiences 
of  tree  life  were  to  be  seen  in  free-running  branches 
of  crimson  lights,  sienna  darks,  and  delightful 
shadings  of  mahogany  red;  at  the  top  it  was 
finished  with  urn-shaped  finials  of  shining  brass. 

"It  was  my  grandfather's,"  said  he.  And  as 
we  still  exclaimed  at  its  beauty,  he  comforted  us 
by  saying,  "You  can  all  have  relics  if  you  live  long 
enough." 

So  it  seems  the  beauty  and  value  of  the  old 
mahogany  desk  were  in  the  story  of  its  life,  written 
all  along  its  veins  in  color,  mellowing  with  the 
years.  If  the  life  of  a  man  or  woman  could  be 
half  so  beautiful  as  that  which  the  tree  writes — 
then  it  might  well  be  worth  preserving. 

Now  that  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  I  shall 
write  this  book,  I  get  much  and  various  advice 
a?  to  how  it  shall  be  done. 

"Tell  the  truth  about  everybody!"  charges  my 
delightfully  frank  and  honest  and  withal  successful 
woman-of-the-world  friend,  Mary  Hewitt.  "Don't 
start  with  the  idea  of  a  book — write  the  story  of 
your  life;  make  it  a  real  human  document;  tell 
just  what  you  think  about  everybody;  tell  of  all 
the  great  people  you  have  met,  and  just  what  you 
thought  of  them;  relate  their  vanities  and  weak- 
nesses, as  well  as  their  greatnesses;  make  the 
story  real,  and  it  will  be  interesting!" 
5 


YESTERDAYS 

Now  no  one  else  has  said  just  that  to  me;  they 
have  taken  it  for  granted  that  I  should  tell  the 
truth,  but,  of  course,  in  a  genteel  and  consider- 
ate way.  My  friend,  however,  will  not  have  any 
human  incidents  polished;  she  wants  them  in  the 
rough,  and  she  tempts  me  with  success  if  I  tell 
the  naked  truth. 

"But  the  truth  is  sometimes  disagreeable,"  I 
say.  "Moreover,  you  are  not  obliged  to  tell  it 
all;  you  can  leave  it  out." 

"Not  if  you  want  your  book  to  be  read.  Tell 
the  truth  about  everybody  and  it  will  take; 
everybody  will  want  to  read  it ;  the  truth  about 
people  is  always  interesting." 

I  wonder  if  I  shall  ? 

A  friend  who  came  in  the  other  day,  just  after 
a  visit  to  a  many-millioned  owner  of  one  of  the 
princely  plantations  hereabout,  remarked,  pen- 
sively : 

"It  takes  a  lot  of  courage  to  tell  the  truth  to  a 
man  worth  eighty  millions." 

And  it  may  take  courage  to  tell  the  truth  to  a 
prospective  audience  of  readers !  Who  knows?  I 
shall  certainly  try  to  be  truthful,  but  I  confess  to 
a  sort  of  passion  for  picturesque  language  and  a 
somewhat  eager  desire  to  impress  people.  I  re- 
member hearing  one  of  my  cousins,  who  could 
tell  an  exceedingly  good  story,'  admonishing  a 
child  of  mine  who  had  been  repeating  one  of  them 
— with  variations. 

6 


"WINTERGREEN" 

"Dora  Wheeler,  when  you  tell  a  story  of  mine, 
I  advise  you  to  tell  it  exactly  as  I  do,  for  I  always 
make  it  just  as  big  as  it  will  bear!" 

Smiling  over  this  reminiscence,  I  find  myself 
comparing  the  impression  made  by  my  amusing 
cousin  and  my  truth- telling  friend,  and  I  decide 
that  it  is  as  amusing  and  far  more  original  to  tell 
the  truth.  But  it  certainly  does  require  courage. 
So,  for  better  or  for  worse,  I  have  begun  my 
story,  and,  being  here,  at  Thomasville,  in  the 
south  of  Georgia,  I  will  tell  how  the  translation 
came  about,  and  somewhat  postpone  the  turn- 
ing back  to  those  small  beginnings  of  me  which 
are  the  proper  starting-off  places  in  any  well- 
ordered  autobiography. 

The  friend  of  long  standing,  who  was  partly 
responsible  for  my  Georgia  experience,  and  who, 
although  much  my  junior,  was  tolerant  of  age  in 
others,  had  found  this  enticing  patch  of  woods. 
Thereupon  she  invited  me  to  join  her  in  building 
each  of  us  a  winter  home  and  living  in  it,  instead  of 
drifting  from  one  Southern  city  to  another  and 
consorting  with  other  ideals  than  our  own. 

The  building  of  cottages  was  a  much-beridden 
hobby  with  both  of  us,  for  Mrs.  Hoyt  had  inaugu- 
rated the  "Shinnecock  Art  Village,"  and  had 
planned  and  adapted  numerous  small  and  inex- 
pensive houses  for  the  sandy  shores  and  bays  of 
Long  Island  at  Southampton;  while  I,  for  my  part, 
had  founded  and  helped  materialize  a  dream  of 
7 


YESTERDAYS 

"Onteora  in  the  Catskills!"  To  each  of  us,  there- 
fore, the  designing  and  building  of  a  house  of  our 
own,  suitable  to  the  pine  woods  and  the  climate, 
and  fitting  our  very  own  selves  in  every  wrinkle 
of  our  individual  natures,  was  mere  play.  We 
were  both  so  enchanted  with  the  thought  of 
actual  possession  in  these  ranks  and  crowds  of 
pine-trees  stretching  up  to  the  blue,  and  in  the 
great  magnolias  with  leaves  a-glitter  in  the  sun- 
rays,  that  we  proceeded  at  once  to  measure  our 
house  spaces  and  distances  from  one  another  with- 
out waiting  for  the  formality  of  deeds.  We  were, 
happily,  out  of  reach  of  masculine  remonstrance, 
and  the  mocking-birds  and  crested  cardinals 
seemed  to  advise  immediate  action ;  so  day  by  day 
the  tall  pines  began  to  fall  from  their  sky  heights 
and  let  the  sunlight  into  unaccustomed  places. 

There  was  trouble  in  fitting  the  prospective 
houses  to  the  trees,  the  latter  were  in  such  crowds, 
and  one  big  and  very  noble  one  stood  exactly 
where  my  chimney  ought  to  come.  When  I 
shifted  the  house  back  the  tree  crowded  the  front 
door,  and  if  I  moved  it  sideways  it  butted  into 
a  pair  of  twins  a  hundred  feet  high.  Which 
should  give  way,  the  house  or  the  trees?  It  was 
of  no  use  to  take  counsel  with  myself,  and  then 
the  trees  were  so  hopelessly  in  the  majority. 
There  was  a  trumpet-creeper  which  had  climbed 
the  shapely  gray  trunks  of  the  twins,  covering 
them  with  closely  lapping  leaves  and  never  look- 
8 


"WINTERGREEN" 

ing  down  until  it  reached  the  top,  where  it  leaned 
into  the  air  and  spread  its  scarlet  blossoms  among 
the  topmost  branches.  Of  course  I  spared  it, 
but  the  wriggling  of  that  inchoate  house  was 
wonderful ! 

Of  necessity  it  had  to  be  what  in  the  North 
we  call  a  summer  cottage,  for  we  could  not  con- 
template anything  so  serious  as  a  Southern  house 
in  the  Southern  sense,  with  great  columns  at  the 
front,  fourteen-foot  ceilings  inside,  and  all  the 
bravery  of  the  old  plantation  days,  a  style  evolved 
by  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  and  fitted  to  the  broad 
acres  of  the  South  as  well  as  to  the  great  estates 
of  earlier  generations  of  Englishmen. 

It  was  a  joy  to  find  lumber  and  labor  cheaper 
than  in  the  North;  wainscoting  at  fifteen  dollars 
a  thousand,  instead  of  thirty-five  or  forty,  and 
labor  at  one  and  two  dollars  a  day  instead  of  from 
two  to  five.  This  meant  just  so  much  larger  area 
which  could  be  covered  in,  and  we  sat  under  the 
pines  and  watched  the  quick  growth  of  our  sum- 
mer-winter houses,  delighted  with  the  sympathy 
of  our  black  builders.  They  are  so  full  of  it, 
this  kindly  colored  race!  And  the  money  they 
earn,  apparently,  plays  so  small  a  part  in  their 
satisfaction  with  you.  Any  one  accustomed  to  the 
close  bargaining  of  Northern  labor  knows  how 
much  of  the  joy  of  building  is  lost  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  hindrance  and  demand.  One  may  admire 
the  independence  and  what  goes  under  the  name 
9 


YESTERDAYS 

of  the  self-respect  of  the  Northern  laborer,  but 
the  smiling  co-operation  of  the  kindly  black 
makes  life  much  more  pleasant  to  live.  It  is 
true  that  when  some  white  friend  has  told  you 
the  usual  rate  of  remuneration  for  a  day's  labor, 
you  are  surprised  at  the  end  of  the  week  to  be 
asked  twice  or  three  times  that  amount. 

"Oh  but,  Columbus,"  you  say,  "I  can't  pay 
that!  I  will  give  you  a  dollar  a  day." 

"Jes'  as  you  say,  miss,"  he  answers.  "If  it  gib 
you  satisfaction,  it  '11  satisfy  me." 

It  is  all  so  easy  and  pleasant.  Think  of  dealing 
with  a  newly  arrived  Scandinavian  in  that  way! 
How  quickly  he  would  shoulder  his  spade  and  go. 
To  my  mind,  these  friendly  coal-black,  chocolate- 
or  coffee-colored  workmen  are  delightful.  Quite 
different  they  are  from  the  too  sophisticated 
Northern  negro.  They  have  a  primitive  charm. 
Their  bodies  are  so  unconscious,  and  follow  so 
thoughtlessly  the  idle  motions  of  their  minds.  I 
wonder  if  it  is  wicked  to  wish  that  they  may 
never  grow  to  have  bodies  trained  into  self- 
consciousness,  or  minds  which  will  ape  the  fashions 
of  the  white  men. 

There  is  but  one  small  difficulty  with  this  de- 
lightful Southern  creature  with  his  inheritance  of 
respect  for  authority;  he  stands  by  and  sees  the 
private  cars  come  in,  and  the  automobiles  let 
loose,  and  the  plantation  acres  bought  up  by 
thousands,  and  the  old  homes  swept  and  garnished 

10 


"WINTERGREEN" 

and  scraped  and  varnished  until  the  very  heart- 
throbs of  them  can  be  seen;  and,  naturally,  he 
thinks  that  every  one  who  comes  from  the  North 
is  literally  stuffed  with  gold.  There  is,  of  course, 
a  certain  satisfaction  in  being  considered  in  this 
high-flown  connection,  and  it  is  painful  to  dis- 
abuse the  simple  souls ;  however,  it  has  to  be  done, 
and  the  process  is  unexpectedly  easy. 

Possibly  something  of  my  interest  and  sympathy 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  in  far-gone  days  I  grew  up 
in  a  mental  atmosphere  strongly  tinctured  with 
abolitionism  and  in  a  house  which  was  one  of  the 
out-of-the-way  stations  of  what  was  picturesquely 
called  "the  underground  railroad."  Slave  life  to 
me  was  then  all  tragedy,  and  there  was  no  hint 
in  it  of  the  affectionate  relation  between  slave 
and  master  which,  I  now  know,  often  existed.  My 
child-mind  was  so  dominated  by  the  Puritan 
thought  of  wrong  that  the  sense  of  it  remained 
until  the  experience  of  years  taught  me  that  even 
wrong  has  alleviations,  and  that  servitude  in 
some  form  is  a  condition  of  life. 

But  old  experiences  and  abstract  questions 
have  little  to  do  with  my  enjoyment  of  the  cheer- 
ful if  somewhat  unskilled  labor  of  the  black  men. 
They  are  so  willing  to  please.  It  is  the  quality 
which  wags  in  the  tail  of  a  dog,  asking  for  and 
appreciation  of  recognition;  and  beyond  that  a 
capacity  for  affection  unknown  to  Northern  ex- 
perience. It  was  that  quality  which  during  the 
ii 


YESTERDAYS 

sorrowful  days  of  the  Civil  War  made  them  the 
friends  and  protectors  of  the  lives  and  properties 
of  the  people  who  owned  them,  and  so  furnished 
an  instance  of  fidelity  unparalleled  in  history. 

We  talked  of  all  this,  my  neighbor  and  I,  as 
we  sat  in  the  shade  of  the  forest,  out  of  reach  of 
the  falling  pines,  those  noble  trees  whose  roots 
had  grown  far  down  into  soil  which  was  at  least 
prospectively  our  own,  and  whose  tops  swayed 
in  our  chosen  cube  of  air  and  under  our  own  patch 
of  sky. 

When  we  received  the  deeds  of  our  acres,  to 
me  it  was  not  simply  a  sheet  of  legal  paper, 
for  it  covered  forty  acres  of  close-crowding  gray 
trunks,  with  sky  glimpses  between  their  feathered 
tops,  and  a  broad,  thick  earth-cover  of  sweet- 
smelling  ocher-colored  "pine  straw"  beneath. 

So  our  houses  progressed  through  the  warm 
Southern  winter,  and  in  six  weeks  we  were  picnick- 
ing in  front  of  our  newly  built  fireplaces,  roasting 
quail  in  tin  camping-ovens  in  the  blaze  of  our 
own  pine-log  fires,  and  going  back  to  our  hotel 
at  night  with  satisfaction  made  up  of  both  an- 
ticipation and  reality.  The  houses  were  not  half 
finished  when  we  camped  down  in  them,  having 
ordered  our  mattresses  and  bedsteads  and  bureaus 
and  chairs  and  dishes  and  kitchen  stoves  from  that 
wonderful  Chicago  fountain  which  we  call  a  mail- 
order house,  and  which  spouts  every  variety  of 
"want  supplies."  The  carpenters  knocked  to- 


"WINTERGREEN" 

gether  our  tables,  but  we  made  our  own  curtains 
and  covered  innumerable  lounge  pillows  of  South- 
ern moss,  with  satisfactory  Southern  "domestic" 
of  just  the  blue  of  the  patches  of  sky  between  the 
pine  branches — and,  oh,  what  a  joy  it  all  was! 
And  how  happily  the  "blue  domestic"  contratesd 
with  the  new  pine  interiors ! 

This  is  the  ninth  winter  since  we  did  these 
things,  and  now  there  is  a  broad  and  long  log 
studio  on  the  eastern  side  of  my  "Wintergreen," 
every  log  cut  from  my  acres,  with  honeysuckle 
finding  its  way  between  the  logs  and  doing  its 
best  to  decorate  the  interior.  There  is  a  green 
ivy-draped  studio  for  my  grandson,  Elisha  Keith, 
built  by  the  men  of  the  Keith  family  and  entirely 
without  reference  to  the  picturesque.  However, 
I  am  training  numerous  vines  into  hiding  this 
artistic  deficiency;  also  the  close-crowding  pines 
and  the  experimental  orange-trees  and  persimmons 
and  peach-trees  are  doing  their  best  to  carry  out 
my  wishes.  The  house  is  covered  on  the  east  with 
two  great  wistarias,  and  on  the  north  with  the 
beautiful  native  Cherokee  rose-vines.  There  is  a 
four-hundred-foot  path  along  the  front  leading 
down  to  my  dear  neighbor's  pretty  stretch  of 
bachelor  quarters  and  pergola  on  the  one  side  of 
the  house,  and  pergola  and  studio  on  the  other. 
This  long  path  between  us  is  bordered  with  a  six- 
foot  bed  of  lemon  lilies,  the  roots  of  which  came 
from  flower-populated  "Nestledown"  on  Long 
13 


YESTERDAYS 

Island.  The  complaisant  roots  not  only  accepted 
the  transplantation,  but  the  plants  blossom  twice 
a  year — in  April  and  November — instead  of  once, 
as  they  have  been  in  the  habit  of  doing  in  June 
at  "Nestledown." 

But  why  should  I  attempt  to  tell  all  that  I  have 
done,  and  all  that  nature  has  done,  to  make  my 
winter  oasis  beautiful?  It  is  beautiful  with  all 
natural  growths  of  the  ground,  through  all  heights 
of  air ;  with  roses  and  azaleas  and  camellias  up  to 
man-height,  and  vines  reaching  the  tops  of  the 
tallest  pines;  with  yellow  jasmine,  and  scarlet 
trumpet-creeper,  and  purple  gloria,  and  striped 
honeysuckle,  and  snow-white  Cherokee  roses — 
every  one  a  native  wild  growth,  doing  its  best 
to  make  good  its  claim  to  beauty. 

Of  the  nine  winters  spent  here,  every  one  has 
vindicated  my  experiment  of  making  for  myself 
another  home,  in  a  warm  and  quiet  corner  of  the 
dear  earth,  now  that  I  am  old  enough  to  retire 
from  all  creative  experiment  and  can  sit  down  to 
ruminate  over  the  sins  and  mistakes  of  the  years 
of  my  pilgrimage.  My  folly  and  temerity  were 
a  seven  years'  wonder  among  my  friends  and 
pitifully  admiring  congratulations  were  innumer- 
able. 

Much  of  the  charm  of  life  in  the  South  is  due 

to   the   kindly   helpfulness    of   one's    neighbors. 

They  would  so  much  rather  do  a  helpful  thing  and 

say  a  pleasant  one  than  not.    I  cannot  help  feel- 

14 


"WINTERGREEN" 

ing  that  it  would  be  easy  and  natural  for  these 
soft- voiced,  pleasant  Southern  people  to  detest 
the  actors  and  instruments  used  by  fate  in  that 
almost  unimaginably  bitter  blessing  which  gave 
them  the  opportunity  of  building  a  new  and 
greater  civilization  on  the  ruins  of  an  outgrown 
one;  but  it  may  take  generations  of  the  women 
of  the  South  to  destroy  the  consciousness  of  having 
been  both  wronged  and  defeated. 

But  even  this  second  generation  cannot  evade 
their  birthright  of  cordial  manner  and  sweet  re- 
sponsiveness, in  spite  of  past  bitterness.  They 
are  still,  notwithstanding  changed  relations,  a 
master  race  living  among  a  tribe  of  born  vassals, 
whose  occasional  realization  of  the  fact  of  freedom 
and  its  possibility  of  license  requires  constant 
vigilance.  Probably  the  dominance  will  continue 
for  many  generations,  and  perhaps  always;  and 
yet  who  can  tell  when  the  mysterious  alchemy  of 
Time  may  stir  into  the  quiet  animal  patience  of 
the  under  race  some  mental  or  spiritual  acid 
which  will  transform  them  into  creatures  of  to- 
day, instead  of  growths  of  a  torpid  past? 

When  I  came  to  make  a  garden  at  "Winter- 
green" — the  name  applies  only  to  a  condition, 
and  not  to  a  prevailing  plant — I  found  all  my 
previous  experience  in  garden-making  in  my 
precious  hill  garden  at  Onteora  quite  superfluous. 
There  I  was  obliged  to  earn  my  joys;  here  they 
15 


YESTERDAYS 

jumped  to  meet  me.  It  seemed  only  necessary 
to  think  of  flowers,  and  straightway  they  grew. 

But  the  influence  of  the  Onteora  garden  fol- 
lowed me,  for  one  and  another  of  my  new  Southern 
neighbors  alluded  .to  it  as  to  an  old  acquaintance ; 
and  when  one  of  them  said  she  was  glad  to  know 
me  because  she  had  so  much  pleasure  in  reading 
Content  in  a  Garden,  it  dawned  upon  me  that  it 
was  the  book,  and  not  the  real  garden,  with  which 
they  were  so  familiar.  It  came  to  me  also  that  I 
should  like  to  reread  this  book,  which  I  had 
thought  drowned  beyond  resuscitation  in  the 
five  years'  flood  of  garden  literature;  so  when  this 
last  friend  reiterated  her  joy  and  comfort  in  it,  I 
wrote  the  Houghton  Mifflin  Company  to  send  me  a 
copy.  I  read  it  all  one  wakeful  night,  and  breathed 
again  the  odor  of  my  high  mountain  garden,  and 
rejoiced  again  in  its  beauty.  I  told  some  ladies 
at  luncheon  of  this  little  personal  experience. 

"And  how  did  you  like  the  book?"  asked  my 
hostess. 

"I  liked  it,"  said  I,  frankly,  whereat,  of  course, 
every  one  laughed. 

But  why  not  like  my  own  work,  I  wonder,  if  it 
is  the  best  that  is  in  me  and  I  have  not  outgrown 
it?  Perhaps  that  is  the  most  that  can  be  said  of 
what  we  have  done  in  our  past — that  we  are 
satisfied  with  it,  for  we  learn  to  be  critical  of  all 
things,  as  we  grow  old — of  our  own  work  as  well 
as  that  of  others.  We  have  seen  so  much  that 
16 


"WINTERGREEN" 

is  bad  and  so  much  that  is  good,  that  we  judge 
of  things  by  a  sort  of  instinct. 

I  remember  something  that  Mr.  Drake — the 
long-time  art  editor  of  the  Century  Magazine — 
said  to  me  when  we  were  a  committee  of  two  on 
some  competitive  drawings.  As  we  proceeded 
with  our  sifting,  putting  out  the  bad,  and  then 
the  tolerable,  and  by  this  process  of  elimination 
arriving  at  the  fairly  good,  and  then  at  the  really 
good,  I  said: 

"See  how  we  proceed  with  this  thing  which 
concerns  so  many  people  intimately;  we  never 
stop  to  think  about  them,  or  even  to  compare 
their  work." 

"What  is  the  good  of  being  an  expert  if  you 
have  to  stop  and  think?"  he  answered,  and  it 
dawned  upon  me  that  that  covers  the  ground  of 
all  expert  knowledge.  It  must  be  so  experienced 
as  to  have  become  instinctive. 

I  found  one  thing  in  Content  in  a  Garden  which 
seemed  to  have  a  bit  of  personal  prophecy.  It 
reads : 

I  sometimes  wonder  if,  instead  of  this  garden  fixed  like 
a  jewel  on  the  bosom  of  Nature,  where  her  lovely  raiment 
flows  in  folds  of  mountain  and  valley,  my  garden  were  upon 
a  plane  of  earth  where  prostrate  miles  lay  in  succession  over 
the  land,  should  I  still  seem  to  hold  all  nature  in  my  heart 
while  I  walk  among  my  flowers. 

And  now  the  wonder  is  to  be  solved,  and  I  am 
to  know  whether  these  horizontal  acres  hold  with- 
2  17 


YESTERDAYS 

in  their  dust  a  quality  equal  to  the  wine  of  the 
uplands.  But  why  compare  happinesses?  The 
living  element  of  beauty,  whether  it  lies  drowsing 
among  the  ocher-colored  grains  of  Southern  sand, 
dreaming  of  the  shape  in  which  it  shall  speedily 
arise,  or  in  the  atoms  of  the  red  pulsating  clay 
of  the  hills,  it  is  still  equally  potent. 

When  my  dear  neighbor,  according  to  her  sun- 
set wont,  wanders  up  my  long  pine-leaf-strewn 
walk,  I  join  her  in  watching  the  emergence  of 
new  things  from  the  earth,  as  one  may  watch  the 
lights  come  out  in  the  great  spread  of  heaven. 
Here  and  there  are  long-rayed  stars  of  green, 
gradually  lifting  themselves  and  growing  into  the 
superlative  forest  grace  of  the  young  long-leaved 
pine.  If  we  walk  into  an  unseen  current  of  fra- 
grance, it  may  be  of  the  low-growing  dream  lilies, 
standing  in  a  flash  of  rose-tipped  white,  or  it  may 
be  the  spilled  odor  from  the  cup  of  a  great  mag- 
nolia blossom  balancing  itself  against  the  blue. 

There  is  no  question  as  to  my  love  for  this 
evenly  spread  pine-wooded  state,  with  its  wide, 
flat  orange-and-vermilion  roads,  and  its  possi- 
bilities of  all  flowers  and  all  fruits  under  the  sun; 
and  yet  I  love  equally  the  high  slopes  and  rugged 
peaks  of  the  Catskills,  where  the  mountains  lap 
one  another  a  little  higher  and  a  little  fainter, 
until  the  last  one  melts  against  the  sky.  Both 
are  good  for  soul  and  body.  Even  the  birds  know 
this  and  follow  their  aerial  track  from  the  k>w- 
18 


"WINTERGREEN" 

lands  to  the  highlands  almost  when  I  do.  How 
long  it  has  taken  me  to  learn  the  wisdom  of  a 
bird! 

There  is  tonic  in  the  mountains,  and  in  moun- 
tain people.  My  country  neighbors  there  keep  me 
up  to  a  standard.  It  is  not,  "Jes'  as  you  say, 
miss";  it  is,  "Just  as  we  can  arrange" — we,  you, 
and  I,  and  I  first.  And  there  is  always  a  stout 
argument  between  us  as  to  the  best  way  of  doing 
things.  I  like  that  also;  to  spend  part  of  the 
year  among  these  self-respecting  men  and  the 
mountains,  and  part  with  the  roses  and  pine- 
trees  and  the  complacent  black  workmen;  and, 
coming  in  between,  six  weeks  of  spring  and  fall 
in  the  city  and  at  the  old  Long  Island  home.  I 
wonder  if  I  have  earned  it.  There  comes  in  the 
New  England  conscience!  Nobody  thinks  of 
earning  things  that  are  good  and  bad  in  Georgia. 
They  just  befall. 

But  my  kindly,  soft -voiced  Southern  neighbors, 
and  the  amusing  and  interesting  Southern  laborer, 
are  not  all  that  belongs  to  the  animate  life  of 
Thomasville.  In  it  I  have  come  to  a  new  ex- 
perience, that  of  multimillionaires.  Perhaps  only 
old  people  know  that  "multimillionaire"  is  a 
new  word  coined  to  meet  a  new  creation. 

In  my  childhood  the  species  can  hardly  have 
existed — not,  at  least,  in  such  numbers  as  to  call 
for  the  coining  of  a  name;  but  the  simple  mill- 
ionaires lived  in  our  minds  securely.  They  were 


YESTERDAYS 

few,  but  kingly.  I  remember,  after  a  business 
trip  to  New  York,  my  father  telling  us  children 
of  a  wonderfully  rich  man  whose  name  was  John 
Jacob  Astor,  who  lived  in  that  city,  and  who  had 
built  a  great  stone  hotel  and  given  it  to  his  son  for 
one  dollar.  As  his  fortune  had  been  made  in  the 
buying  and  selling  of  skins,  which  was  also  my 
father's  business,  we  found  all  the  possibilities  of 
a  fairy-tale  in  his  great  treasure  of  a  million  dol- 
lars. 

Our  fur  trade  dealt  with  the  purchases  of  in- 
dividual skins,  of  a  dozen  red  fox,  an  occasional 
"cross  fox,"  which  bore  a  distinct  cross  of  black 
upon  its  shoulders,  and  sometimes  a  black  fox, 
and,  rarity  of  rarities!  a  silver  fox,  which  would 
sell  in  New  York  for  at  least  ten  dollars.  We 
were  made  to  do  sums  in  multiplication  of  fox 
and  mink  and  muskrat  skins,  to  the  value  of  a 
million  dollars,  and  that  was  all  we  knew  about 
millionaires.  Now,  at  the  other  end  of  my  life 
span,  I  was  brought  into  actual  friendly  contact 
with  modestly  rich  millionaires,  and  comfortably 
rich  multimillionaires,  and  I  find  them  almost  in- 
variably delightful. 

They  are  scattered  in  a  great  circle  around  the 
little  Southern  city  of  Thomasville,  at  a  distance 
of  from  two  to  ten  miles,  each  one  owning  an  old 
plantation,  with  its  Colonial  house  and  old  corn 
and  cotton  fields,  and  its  stretches  of  tall  pine 
woods  covering  thousands  of  acres. 

20 


"WINTERGREEN" 

It  is  the  possession  of  the  latter  which  has  made 
their  great  purchasing  power  good  and  beneficial, 
in  my  mind,  to  the  state  of  Georgia.  It  saves  the 
forests.  There  is  no  scarring  of  noble  trunks  for 
turpentine,  no  felling  of  them  for  lumber  where 
the  millionaire  proprietorship  exists.  Thus  owned, 
they  need  not  stand  from  day  to  day  or  from  season 
to  season,  trembling  on  their  feet  for  fear  of  the 
"enterprise"  of  some  needy  mortal.  There  is 
profit  in  the  blood  and  bones  of  this  great,  vanish- 
ing tribe;  and  the  ambitious  Southern  men  are 
keen  for  profit;  therefore,  for  the  salvation  the 
millionaires  have  wrought  for  the  forests,  and  be- 
cause they  have  become  our  warm  friends,  I  call 
these  great  millionaires,  "the  sons  and  daughters 
of  God."  For  surely  they  are  the  most  favored 
children  of  the  earth,  kings  of  subjects  who  need 
not  war.  Yes,  I  am  glad  of  the  multimillionaires ! 

And  what  ideal  lives  they  lead  on  the  noble 
old  plantations!  Their  activities  are  for  the  most 
part  in  line  with  earth's  own  ambitions;  it  is  a 
co-operation  with  nature  with  "sweat  of  the 
brow"  left  out.  Every  winter,  when  some  friend 
or  friends  stop  over  with'  me  for  the  first  time  on 
their  way  to  the  uttermost  South,  we  drive  them 
for  an  afternoon  through  the  Wade  plantation, 
with  its  wonderful  beauty,  or  to  the  Payne  plan- 
tation with  its  galleried  and  pillared  last-century 
house,  perfect  in  style  and  place;  its  palms  and 
roads  and  rivers  and  miles  of  azaleas  wild  and 


YESTERDAYS 

tame,  and  every  beautiful  growth,  native  and 
exotic. 

The  two  great  natural  stretches  of  wild  azaleas 
remind  me  of  an  utterance  of  William  Cullen 
Bryant  on  an  evening  when  I  sat  on  the  front 
porch  of  his  old  Long  Island  house  at  Roslyn 
with  him  and  his  daughter  Julia,  looking  at  the 
curved  arch  of  a  bridge  reflected  in  the  still  water 
of  a  wide,  slowly  flowing  inlet.  As  I  looked  at  the 
long  oval  of  the  bridge  and  its  reflection  I  said, 
"There  are  two  bridges  there." 

"Yes,"  said  the  poet,  "I  built  one  and  God 
decreed  the  other." 

And  so  it  is  with  the  great  fields  and  stretches 
of  the  wild  azalea — God  decreed  them. 

Two  such  places  as  the  Payne  and  the  Wade 
plantations  would  dignify  any  city  anywhere. 
They  stand  within  driving  or  motor  distance  of 
many  others,  each  one  with  its  special  charm. 
And  there  is  the  Briarhill  plantation  of  the  Bill- 
ingses,  where  wild  turkeys  come  to  feed  with  the 
barn-yard  fowls,  where  are  lovely  woodland  lakes 
the  waters  of  which  sink  into  the  earth  some  unex- 
pected day,  leaving  their  finny  tribes  behind,  and 
rise  again  almost  in  a  night  and  smile  in  the  face 
of  their  bewildered  owners.  Here  the  planting  of 
native  and  exotic  trees  has  been  so  skilful  that 
no  mortal  can  tell  where  nature  rested  and  man 
began. 

There  is  the  Sage  plantation  with  its  uninter- 


"WINTERGREEN" 

rupted  heritage  of  beauty  come  down  to  these 
modern  days,  enriched  by  growths  which  it  has 
possessed  these  many  years.  There  are  trees 
which  perhaps  were  spared  when  home  fields 
were  chopped  out  of  the  wilderness;  now,  having 
come  into  the  hands  of  their  present  owners,  their 
beauty  is  intensified  by  the  careful  spread  of 
green  lawn  in  which  they  stand,  and  the  care  and 
thought  bestowed  upon  them.  So  the  great  leafy 
sentinels  standing  at  its  gate  share  in  their  own 
beauty  and  a  chance  to  enjoy  that  which  is  so 
lavishly  spread  around  them.  I  hold  a  thread  of 
interest  in  the  gracious  owners  of  this  plantation 
which  stretches  back  for  almost  a  century  to  the 
time  when  I  was  a  small  girl  and  sat  behind  an- 
other girl's  desk  in  the  old  Delaware  Academy. 
Susan  Lynn  she  was,  Susan  Sage  she  became  when 
she  had  grown  to  womanhood ;  and  now  her  grand- 
children and  mine  are  busy  with  school-girls  and 
school-boys  of  their  own. 

There  is  the  Morse  plantation  where  all  wild- 
wood  things  are  fostered  on  thousands  of  acres; 
where  the  out-of-doors  housekeeping  is  as  perfect 
as  that  of  the  home;  where  the  chatelaine  dis- 
penses body-and-soul  comfort  to  every  living  thing 
within  eye  or  mind  reach.  And  these  are  not  all. 
There  is  Pebble  Hill  plantation,  known  of  the 
colored  laborers  from  all  the  near  counties  for 
its  Easter  festival  planned  and  perpetuated  for 
their  happiness;  and  finally  there  is  the  beautiful 
23 


YESTERDAYS 

Hanna  plantation,  which  is  the  father  of  them  all, 
where  claret-colored  stems  of  sunset  roses  have 
grown  like  limbs  of  trees  along  the  highway,  and 
camphor-trees  stand  sentinels  over  acres  and 
acres  of  fertility  and  beauty. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  exactly  what  will  be 
done  when  one  of  these  principalities  comes  into 
the  hands  of  a  new  owner.  There  is  always  the 
chance  of  its  becoming  simply  another  means  for 
the  competitive  display  of  the  power  of  wealth, 
but  it  must  be  confessed  that  there  is  some  quality 
in  the  air  or  soil  of  Georgia  which  is  at  war  with 
extravagance.  The  owners  neither  build  pali- 
sades nor  dig  trenches.  ' '  The  freedom  of  the  city ' ' 
is  offered  to  the  world. 

The  Archbold  plantation  is  the  latest  of  all, 
and  in  it  there  is  a  happy  combination  of  business 
ability  and  kingly  opportunity.  It  is  distinguished 
by  scenery  as  well  as  beauty,  for  it  lies  along  the 
high  banks  of  a  stream  or  river  which  finally 
makes  its  way  to  the  Gulf,  a  body  of  water  so 
strong  as  to  defy  the  thirsty  sands  through  which 
it  forces  its  way.  But  for  once  scenery  is  domi- 
nated by  crops.  They  are  called  out  of  their  sleep 
in  the  generous  earth  in  masses,  which  become  im- 
pressive— armies  of  green  things  growing  into 
man-food,  an  offering  of  earth  which  finally  be- 
comes man. 

Many  of  the  great  plantation-owners  belonged 
to  the  Middle  West,  and  as  a  matter  of  mental 
24 


"WINTERGREEN" 

speculation  I  should  like  to  know  what  subtle 
influence  of  earth  and  air  has  made  them  in  one 
important  particular  differ  so  widely  from  their 
brothers  and  sisters  who  have  grown  up  near  the 
Eastern  coast.  It  is  a  difference  in  spirit  as  well 
as  in  act;  a  sort  of  spontaneous  generosity  both 
material  and  spiritual.  They  bestow  fruit  and 
flowers  and  vegetables  and  hospitality  on  ten- 
mile  neighbors,  as  we  Eastern  people  might  hold 
out  our  hands  in  simple  greeting ;  they  offer  liking 
and  affection  with  open  hearts.  Where  did  the 
mystic  quality  of  it  have  its  birth?  In  unworked 
and  gladly  generous  soil  and  unbreathed  air,  or 
is  it  in  the  chemistry  of  circumstance,  the  real 
brotherhood  of  like  motives  in  their  voluntary 
separation  from  old  surroundings? 

When  I  am  surprised  by  some  unlooked-for 
generosity  or  new  kindness  from  the  "plantation 
people,"  I  always  wonder  why  they  are  so  differ- 
ent and  why  they  came  to  be  different  from  the 
dear,  devoted  friends  of  my  childhood  and  middle 
life  and  old  age.  The  whole  mystery  is  solved 
perhaps  in  the  old  command,  "Freely  ye  have 
received;  freely  give." 

It  is  curious  to  me  that  the  brief  springs  of  this 
short  nine  years  spent  in  Georgia  should  seem 
in  a  way  to  overflow  the  memory  of  the  long  and 
varied  ones  which  preceded  them;  in  fact,  those 
experiences  seem  to  belong  to  an  entirely  different 
self  (to  some  one  of  my  name  and  looks  and  place). 
25 


YESTERDAYS 

Of  course  I  remember  vividly  such  things  as  long 
and  pleasant  visits  at  the  Bryant  home  at  Roslyn, 
and  the  table-talk  and  evening  talk  of  the  man 
and  his  friends;  and  I  recall  the  silvery  speech  of 
Lowell,  and  the  crisp  utterances  of  Holmes,  and 
the  marvelous  wit  of  Aldrich;  I  remember  even 
two  wondering  hours  spent  in  taking  stock  of 
Browning,  of  his  looks  and  words  as  seen  and 
heard  at  a  London  luncheon.  And  yet,  just  now 
and  here,  the  interest  of  my  life  centers  upon  the 
performance  of  certain  flowers  at  certain  times — 
whether  the  great  magnolia  buds  will  open  before 
I  go  North,  whether  the  dream-lilies  will  finish 
their  celestial  existence,  or  the  persimmons  hang 
on  the  trees  until  I  come  back  in  the  fall.  Yet 
I  know  that  the  flowers  and  fruits  which  are  so 
absorbing  to  my  present  mind  concern  only  me 
and  themselves  and  the  mysterious  will  which 
made  them;  while  the  wonderful  souls  with 
which  I  have  been  brought  more  or  less  in  con- 
tact, with  whose  bodies  and  ways  of  speech  and 
expressions  I  have  been  more  or  less  familiar, 
are  human  stars  in  the  firmament  of  thought,  and 
of  strong  and  lasting  interest  to  the  world. 

In  this  December  of  my  life  there  are  three 
places  on  the  earth  where  I  am  at  home;  about 
each  of  the  three  I  shall  write.  "Nestledown," 
the  old  home  on  Long  Island,  where  I  really  grew 
up  with  my  children  and  where  I  plan  to  end  my 
days;  "Onteora-in-the-Catskills,"  which  was  the 
26 


"WINTERGREEN" 

outcome  of  all  I  had  learned  and  experienced  in 
the  first  half  of  my  life,  and  "Wintergreen,"  in 
Georgia,  where  I  am  harvesting  a  late  aftermath 
of  flowery  satisfaction.  Is  the  crop  of  my  life 
quite  without  weeds,  I  wonder?  I  have  lost  ap- 
petite for  many  things,  but  I  find  the  beauty 
of  nature  very  enticing.  The  ground  and  its 
manifestations,  its  outgrowths,  are  very  dear  to 
me,  while  the  love  of  my  kind,  and  the  love  I  feel 
for  my  kind,  satisfy  in  a  measure  the  inner  some- 
thing which  demands  happiness. 


II 

IN    THE    BEGINNING 

"THE  spark  of  consciousness  which  grew  into 
*  the  present  me  became  visible  to  the  father 
and  mother  who  were  anxiously  watching  for  its 
appearance,  one  wild  March  morning  in  the  year 
1827,  in  the  small  new  settlement  of  Delhi  in  cen- 
tral New  York.  The  two  people  who  were  wait- 
ing my  appearance  were  Abner  Thurber  and  Lucy 
Dunham  Thurber,  the  appointed  life-house- 
keepers for  the  eight  small  pioneer  children  of 
whom  I  was  the  third.  Every  family  did  its  share 
in  adding  children  to  the  village  flock,  twenty- 
four  being  the  maximum. 

I  was  born  early  enqugh  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury to  see  and  realize  all  the  great  business  of  the 
settlement  of  America,  near  enough  to  the  troubled 
beginning  to  have  my  dreams  tortured  with  the 
happenings  to  early  settlers,  whose  stories  were  a 
repetition  of  the  tragedies  of  unforgotten  lives.  My 
dreams  were  of  pursuits  and  killings  and  scalpings 
and  house-burnings  by  dispossessed,  resentful 
Indians.  I  suppose  no  child  of  the  present  day 
28 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

dreams  such  savage  tragedies,  because  they  are 
distant,  but  my  dreams  were  of  the  near-at- 
hand. 

I  grew  up  in  this  newly  founded  village  in  the 
valley  where  the  Delaware  River  begins  to  gather 
its  waters.  The  name  of  Delhi  must  have  been 
chosen  by  some  young  English  surveyor  with 
Eastern  traditions.  It  accorded  happily  with 
that  of  the  retiring  tribe  of  Delaware  Indians,  as 
well  as  of  the  Delaware  River  and  entrancing 
Delaware  Valley.  The  classical  names  of  many 
of  the  little  town  centers  of  middle  and  western 
New  York  must  have  been  given  in  the  same  hap- 
hazard fashion  by  other  well-equipped  younger 
sons  seeking  their  fortunes  by  surveying  the 
wilderness  of  the  New  World.  I  can  fancy  them 
going  up  and  down  the  great  fertile  valleys  of  the 
states  doing  the  behests  of  the  government  and 
availing  themselves  of  those  liberal  provisions  by 
which  any  prominent  and  responsible  citizen  who 
bound  himself  to  settle  fifty  existing  or  prospective 
families  at  a  favorable  center,  received  the  grant 
of  great  tracts  of  land,  of  forests,  mountains,  lakes, 
and  rivers.  At  first  these  newly  recruited  pioneers 
lived  upon  the  produce  of  the  abandoned  fields 
of  the  Indians  and  their  relinquished  heritage  of  fish 
and  game,  living  as  simply  as  they,  the  only  dif- 
ference being  a  settled  instead  of  a  nomadic  life. 
Gradually  they  acquired,  with  joy  and  welcome, 
a  stray  doctor  or  a  missionary  minister,  a  journey- 
29 


YESTERDAYS 

man  carpenter  or  a  traveling  shoemaker.  The 
patroon  furnished  machinery  for  a  sawmill,  and 
they  became  a  town — generally  the  shire  town 
of  the  county — and  proceeded  to  organize  society 
according  to  its  rules.  Such  was  the  beginning 
of  all  our  great  Middle  States  population. 

I  suppose  that  in  every  one  of  the  little  com- 
munities which  were  gradually  settling  the  North- 
ern and  Middle  States  there  were  families  like 
ours,  where  New  England  traits  and  traditions 
were  the  yeast  which  was  making  a  quality  of 
good  American  bread  out  of  the  diversified  popu- 
lation. Some  one  of  the  early  New  England  di- 
vines said,  "God  sifted  a  whole  nation  to  find 
seed  for  New  England,"  and  it  was  this  sifted 
seed  which  has  so  largely  influenced  American 
character. 

According  to  my  present  estimate  of  the  two 
people  to  whom  I  owe  my  existence,  Father  was 
a  saint.  No  soul  of  the  little  community  in  which 
we  lived,  whether  of  good  or  bad  report,  passed 
into  the  darkness  of  the  end  without  the  clasp  of 
good  "Deacon  Thurber's"  comforting  hand,  and 
when  the  mysterious  boundary  of  present  life  was 
reached,  Father's  prayers  and  blessings  floated 
around  him. 

Luckily  for  us,  Mother's  superiority  was  of 
a  more  material  kind.  Handsome,  healthy, 
and  a  notable  wife  and  mother,  she  fulfilled  per- 
fectly all  her  home  and  neighborly  duties,  a  happy 
3° 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

sharer  of  the  joys,  an  efficient  helper  in  the  acci- 
dents and  calamities  of  pioneer  life. 

Father  belonged  to  the  line  of  religious  enthusi- 
asts, the  prophets  of  the  world,  who  stand  upon 
the  mountain-tops.  I  remember  his  curious  assur- 
ance of  things  unseen.  His  dreams  were  often 
revelations,  and  we  accepted  them  as  facts,  they  so 
frequently  proved  themselves  to  be  so.  One  morning 
comes  back  to  me  when  he  said  to  Mother,  "  Wifie, 
the  little  church  at  Oswego  is  gone."  That  very 
night  it  had  been  burned  to  the  ground.  During 
the  great  sickness — as  we  called  the  visitation  of 
spinal  meningitis — he  assured  Mother  that  our 
house  would  be  spared,  for  in  a  dream,  as  he 
was  standing  at  the  gate  looking  down  the  valley, 
a  woman  whose  face  was  bound  with  a  death-cloth 
appeared  upon  the  path  and  said  to  him,  jeeringly, 
' '  I  suppose  you  think  the  sickness  has  not  come  to 
you  because  of  your  righteousness."  "No,"  he 
answered,  "but  because  of  the  mercy  of  God," 
whereat  her  face  wrinkled  with  a  queer  con- 
strained smile  on  account  of  the  death-bands  and 
she  passed  on,  saying,  "No,  I  am  not  sent  to  you; 
but  I  am  going  there  and  there  and  there,"  point- 
ing to  other  homes  in  the  valley.  Father  had  us 
all  kneel  down  while  he  prayed  for  our  afflicted 
neighbors. 

I  was  afraid  of  Father's  prayers  when  they 
concerned  me,  and  particularly  what  he  called 
"the  prayer  <5f  faith."  Fulfilment  seemed  so 
31 


YESTERDAYS 

often  to  follow  his  petitions  that  I  was  ready  to 
weep  over  myself  when  he  prayed  that  ' '  Candace 
should  be  a  missionary."  I  saw  myself  sailing 
across  unknown  seas  to  unknown  lands  and  living 
among  savages  who  could  not  speak  English.  In 
these  later  years  I  have  been  brought  into  con- 
tact with  the  assured  faith  of  Christian  Scientists, 
and  I  recognize  in  it  the  same  belief  in  prayer,  a 
belief  born  of  the  same  human  helplessness,  but 
without  the  former  asceticism  which  envelopes 
"the  prayer  of  faith." 

As  I  grew  up  I  emerged  from  this  atmosphere 
of  religious  mystery  into  the  free,  dusty  air  of 
the  world,  breathing  it  and  existing  by  it  lo! 
these  many  years,  and  coming  at  last  to  the 
place  where  the  mystery  of  life  touches  the  mys- 
tery of  death  and  our  eyes  shall  be  opened  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  immortals. 

Mother  was  of  the  Roman  type.  She  had  the 
broad-browed  beauty  of  a  contadina,  as  I  recog- 
nized, when  I  came  to  see  the  race  in  Italy,  but 
with  it  the  eager  intelligence  which  the  con- 
stantly recurring  problems  of  pioneer  life  de- 
manded. This  fine  motherly  face  was  in  strong 
contrast  with  that  of  my  father,  which  was  dis- 
tinctly of  the  enthusiast  and  idealist  type,  but  the 
characters  of  the  two  wonderfully  supplemented 
each  other.  Mother  manifested  all  the  human 
and  practical  virtues,  and  Father  supplied  the 
heavenly  fire  which  sanctified  them. 
32 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

The  principles  in  which  their  children  were 
reared  had  the  Puritan  narrowness  belonging  to 
Puritan  thought,  and,  as  they  were  practically  ap- 
plied, they  made  our  lives  quite  different  from 
those  of  the  rest  of  the  community.  The  inevi- 
table censure  called  out  by  this  habit  of  life  was 
modified  by  constant  and  important  public  ac- 
tivity, and  generous,  self-denying  social  help  on 
the  part  of  both  Father  and  Mother.  This  sense 
of  obligation  did  not,  however,  weigh  upon  our 
schoolmates,  and  we  were  branded  in  our  child- 
hood with  the  obnoxious  virtues  of  our  parents. 
The  training  of  the  eight  children  who  composed 
the  family  flock  was  based  directly  upon  the  pre- 
cepts of  Solomon,  not  in  the  least  mitigated  by 
centuries  of  divergent  thought.  We  were  not 
only  traditional,  but  actual  Puritans,  repeating 
in  1828  the  lives  of  our  pioneer  New  England  fore- 
fathers a  hundred  years  before. 

I  must  have  been  horribly  self-conscious  as  a 
small  child,  for  the  very  first  thing  I  remember 
in  the  way  of  speech  was  hearing  Mother  say 
to  my  father  that  Candace  was  "a  pretty  thing." 
I  had  learned  the  difference  between  beauty  and 
ugliness  and  treasured  this  speech  secretly  and 
guiltily  in  my  child  mind,  although  I  knewthe  pleas- 
ure it  gave  me  was  vanity  and  vanity  was  almost 
a  deadly  sin.  I  looked  in  the  glass,  not  once,  but 
whenever  I  could  steal  an  unobserved  moment, 
to  see  what  Mother  and  Father  had  talked  about 
3  33 


YESTERDAYS 

together.  I  liked  the  little  face  I  saw,  but  it  was 
not  beautiful  like  the  small  white  faces  we  were 
sometimes  taken  to  see  when  a  neighbor's  child 
had  died  and  was  laid,  like  a  precious  thing,  in  a 
satin-lined  coffin.  I  wished  I  could  be  white  and 
beautiful  as  they  were,  and  thought  their  tiny 
frost-white  hands,  with  fingers  folded  into  one  an- 
other, the  prettiest  things  I  had  ever  seen.  I 
used  to  smooth  back  the  blood  in  my  own  small 
pink  fingers  and  fold  them  together  to  make  them 
look  like  theirs. 

It  was  pitiful,  according  to  my  present  think- 
ing, to  take  little  children  to  see  their  dead 
playmates,  but  to  the  minds  of  our  father  and 
mother  death  was  a  part  of  life,  a  fact  not 
to  be  withheld.  We  were  shown  these  beautiful 
dead  bodies  and  told  that  they  were  folded  in  the 
arms  of  angels  in  heaven,  and  that  if  we  died  and 
had  been  good  we  should  also  go  there.  I  re- 
member wondering  if,  in  such  case,  they  might 
think  I  was  "a  pretty  thing,"  and  like  my  blue 
eyes  and  yellow  hair,  but — and  here  was  an  awful 
possibility — if  we  were  bad  we  should  go  to  hell. 
To  tell  lies  or  to  steal  was  to  be  bad,  and  I  used 
often  to  threaten  my  little  brothers  with  hell, 
for  they  did  tell  lies  and  stole  Mother's  cake  and 
preserves.  I  can  fancy  my  child  voice  shrilling 
out  the  anathema  I  still  remember,  "You  will 
go  to  hell,  you  will,  for  you  tell  lies,  and  steals, 
and  you  swears;  you  say,  'By  Golly!'" 
34 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

Being  an  imaginative  and  intrepid  child,  who 
could  bear  the  consequences  of  sin  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  sinning,  I  suffered  conscientious  whippings 
for  a  tendency  to  change  plain  facts  into  fairy- 
tale happenings  and  otherwise  varying  the  mo- 
notony of  our  sternly  prescribed  lives.  The  later 
children  were  more  liberally  dealt  with,  as  I  re- 
member pointing  out  to  my  mother  when  I  grew 
to  an  age  of  observation  and  comparison,  and  I 
was  told  that  we  three  elders  were  such  failures 
in  point  of  goodness  that  they  were  trying  a  differ- 
ent course  with  the  rest,  hoping  for  better  results. 
This  was  not  consoling,  but  Mother  probably  en- 
joyed the  point  she  made. 

The  little  house  "over  the  river"  from  the  town 
had  many  guests  in  the  shape  of  straggling  mis- 
sionaries collecting  funds  for  special  missions, 
colporteurs  distributing  Bibles  through  the  coun- 
try, temperance  lecturers,  and  the  like,  all  of 
whom  we  half -grown  children  heartily  detested. 
I  hardly  know  why  we  disliked  them  except  that, 
being  trained  in  the  simple  principles  of  bodily 
labor,  we  saw  at  once  that  this  sort  of  life  shifted 
its  exercises  to  others.  Children's  deductions 
from  principles  are  mercilessly  direct,  and  these 
men  who  came  and  went,  quartering  themselves 
and  their  horses  upon  the  family  for  any  con- 
venient time,  we  called  among  ourselves  "re- 
ligious loafers,"  and  gave  them  very  grudging 
service.  I  think  Mother's  heart  was  with  us  in 
35 


YESTERDAYS 

this  view  of  the  matter,  but  Father  bolstered  up 
the  practice  with  Christ's  directions  to  his  dis- 
ciples. 

The  visits  of  these  men  were  now  and  then 
varied  by  the  appearance  of  a  black  man  of  a 
far  more  ingratiating  type  whom  we  generally 
saw  first  in  the  morning,  having  presumably  ar- 
rived in  the  night.  After  breakfast  and  morning 
prayers  he  was  sequestered  in  the  haymow  during 
the  day,  and  disappeared  during  the  following 
night.  Long  afterward,  I  understood  that  our 
home  had  been  one  of  the  by-stations  on  the 
"Underground  Railroad,"  and  that  these  oc- 
casional visitors  were  runaway  slaves  on  their 
perilous  way  to  Canada.  I  think  they  were  for- 
warded to  us,  and  Father  took  them  to  the  next 
station,  which  could  not  have  been  very  near, 
for  abolitionism  was  not  popular  in  our  town  or 
county,  and  we  knew  no  other  family  which  shared 
with  us  the  obloquy  of  belonging  to  the  society. 

I  remember  that  when  the  children  of  the  school 
or  neighborhood  felt  I  was  particularly  in  want  of 
"taking  down,"  a  favorite  method  of  it  was  to 
call  me  "the  nigger  queen,"  after  that  Candace, 
Queen  of  the  Ethiopians,  whose  eunuch  "of  great 
authority,"  having  "charge  of  all  her  treasure," 
Philip  baptized. 

At  morning  prayers,  after  Father's  opening 
petition,  the  "colored  brother"  was  always  asked 
to  pray,  and  I  still  remember  the  quaint  phrase- 
36 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

ology  of  one  prayer  which  was  often  repeated  by 
my  boy  brothers : 

"And  now,  O  Lord,  bress  dy  servants,  de  united 
head  ob  dis  family.  'Spire  dem  wid  holy  zeal, 
and  when  dey  die  may  dey  go  to  dat  happy  land, 
and  dere  to  all  eternity  sing  de  praises  ob  Em- 
manuel." 

There  was  only  one  black  man  who  really  be- 
longed in  our  village — "Corporal  Tim" — prob- 
ably a  descendant  of  slaves  in  the  family  of  his 
military  master,  Colonel  Paine — so  the  negro  dia- 
lect was  entirely  strange  to  us  and  very  amusing 
to  the  boys. 

Our  separation  from  village  life,  by  being  on 
the  opposite  bank  of  the  small  river,  and  the 
sequestration  of  the  fugitives  except  at  prayers, 
seemed  to  secure  their  safety ;  and  generally  by  the 
second  morning  they  had  mysteriously  vanished. 

It  seemed  to  me  in  those  years  quite  natural 
that  we  should  not  wear  cotton  clothing,  because 
cotton  was  a  product  of  slave  labor,  and  that  the 
painfully  produced  linen  from  flax  grown  on  the 
farm,  and  spun  and  woven  in  our  own  house,  should 
be  its  substitute.  Mother  had  been  famous  as  a 
girl  for  the  fineness  of  her  home-spun  linen,  so 
this  expedient,  although  extravagant,  was  not 
impossible. 

I  remember  the  very  feel  and  silvery  texture  of 
a  pair  of  carefully  sewn  linen  sheets  made  of 
Mother's  "premium  linen,"  and  kept  for  the  use 
37 


YESTERDAYS 

of  "traveling  missionaries."  She  had  often  told 
us  of  a  web,  spun  and  woven  by  her  own  hands, 
before  she  was  sixteen,  and  for  which  she  proudly 
received  six  silver  table-spoons  at  the  state  fair. 
I  remember  also  the  gruesome  detail  of  the  first 
cutting  from  the  piece — a  shroud  which  was  fash- 
ioned for  her  father  and  laid  away  in  "the  under- 
drawer"  years  before  he  died.  That  "under- 
drawer"  was  sacred  in  most  pioneer  houses  to 
exigencies.  "Winding-sheets"  were  there,  and 
choice  and  fine  garments,  both  large  and  small, 
for  the  dead,  for  in  that  day  of  slender  resources 
each  household  must  be  prepared  for  the  tragedies 
of  life.  There  was  the  "sick-drawer"  and  the 
"death-drawer"  in  the  high  bureau  in  our  own 
best  room,  and  we  were  not  unacquainted  with 
their  contents.  We  looked  upon  these  things  with 
interest  and  awe,  but  not  horror.  They  were  a 
part  of  the  setting  of  the  play  of  life  and  often 
came  into  use.  For  the  same  reason  that  we  wore 
no  cotton  clothing  white  sugar,  other  than 
bleached  maple  sugar,  was  never  used  in  our  kitch- 
en. The  maple-grove  on  the  mountain  at  the 
back  of  the  farm  produced  all  the  sweetness  per- 
mitted in  our  conscientious  family,  and  we  of  the 
second  generation  were  quite  unaware  of  the  fact 
that  we  were  being  sacrificed  to  a  principle.  Maple 
sugar  was  good  and  making  it  was  fun,  especially 
on  a  moonlit  April  night  when  we  were  allowed 
to  go  to  the  camp  for  "sugaring  off,"  and  could 
38 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

spread  cups  of  the  thickened-by-fire  syrup  over 
the  snow  crust  until  it  cooled  and  candied.  We 
then  pulled  it  into  skeins  and  braids  and  cut  it 
into  sticks  of  maple  candy,  which  we  could  take 
to  school  with  us  and  dispense  sparingly  or  royally 
according  to  our  moods  or  likings,  without  being 
in  the  least  aware  that  maple  candy  embraced  a 
principle.  I  wonder  if  such  self-denying  adherence 
to  principle  would  be  possible  in  these  self-indul- 
gent days?  Or  is  it  that  my  path  in  life  has  led 
me  away  from  the  knowledge  of  it  ? 

In  looking  back  over  my  Puritan  childhood  I 
can  see  that  it  held  both  tragedy  and  pathos,  or 
at  least  much  that  in  modern  days  would  be 
thought  tragic  and  pathetic.  Happily  the  won- 
derful inexperience  of  a  child  had  not  taught  me 
to  discriminate  between  other  people's  sorrow  and 
joy.  Both  were  spectacles  and  incidents  of  life, 
each  one  new  and  absorbing  when  looked  at  from 
the  standpoint  of  a  neighbor. 

I  remember  one  period  of  village  life  when  the 
newly  named  "spinal  meningitis"  ran  like  a 
slaughtering  fiend  along  the  village  streets  and 
when  all  of  the  adult  well  of  the  community  were 
weighted  down  with  the  nursing  of  the  sick.  We 
were  sometimes  sent,  my  older  sister  and  I,  girls 
of  eleven  and  thirteen,  to  watch  through  the 
night  with  sick  neighbors  or  to  take  care  of  chil- 
dren whose  parents  were  dying.  Young  as  we 
were,  I  know  that  we  were  often  efficient  helpers 
39 


YESTERDAYS 

in  the  saddest  human  straits.  Perhaps,  after  all, 
it  was  not  so  unwise  as  it  seemed  that  such  hearty 
little  animal  natures  as  ours  should  sometimes  be 
given  a  plunge  into  the  everlasting  pool  of  human 
sorrow.  Sooner  or  later  the  knowledge  of  it  must 
come  to  every  one,  and  we  could  never  afterward 
be  taken  unawares.  Possibly  it  made  us  more 
pitiful,  more  accessible  to  the  call  of  our  kind, 
more  free  from  the  curious  insensibility  of  the 
normal  child  to  the  sufferings  of  others.  I  do  not 
know. 

Being  comparatively  an  elder  in  the  family,  I 
assisted  in  the  upbringing  of  the  ever-present 
baby  and  had  the  entire  care  of  his  predecessor, 
poor  thing!  But  he  lived  through  it,  my  well- 
beloved  brother  Frank,  and  went  out  into  the 
world  at  fourteen  to  make  his  own  place  and 
enter  upon  an  important  and  beautiful  manhood. 

During  these  years  of  our  childhood  Father 
scrupulously  devoted  a  tenth  of  his  small  income 
to  charity  and  followed  the  precepts  of  Christ 
in  every  particular  like  the  personal  disciples.  In 
his  mind  there  were  but  two  tests  to  apply  to 
human  action:  Was  it  right?  Was  it  wrong? 
I  am  still  conscious  of  the  very  human  side  of 
him.  He  could  be  possessed  with  wrath  at  any 
infraction  of  his  code  in  others.  It  was  what 
Mother  called  "the  old  Adam"  in  him  when  she 
felt  called  upon  to  admonish  him,  and  I  think  it 
must  have  been  a  great  relief  to  her,  in  the  pres- 
40 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

ence  of  such  extreme  goodness,  to  occasionally 
find  joints  in  his  armor  of  righteousness.  I  re- 
member seeing  one  of  these  white  heats  of  wrath 
when  I  was  curled  in  a  chair  behind  the  stove  in 
the  store,  whither  I  had  been  sent  to  call  Father 
to  the  family  dinner.  He  was  in  the  midst  of  a 
heated  argument  with  General  Root,  who  was 
the  political  magnate  of  Delaware  County  and 
had  gone  for  twenty  consecutive  years  to  the 
state  legislature  in  consequence.  The  argument 
was  upon  the  divinity  of  Christ.  Finally  the 
general  said,  excitedly: 

"I  tell  you,  Deacon,  the  man  you  call  Christ 
was  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  illegitimate 
son  of  a  Galilean  peasant  girl." 

Father  sprang  to  his  feet  with  eyes  like  flashes 
of  blue  lightning,  as  if  they  would  consume  the 
man  who  had  given  this  astonishing  utterance. 

"And  I  tell  you,  General,"  he  shouted,  "that 
I  will  have  you  indicted  for  blasphemy!" 

For  a  minute  the  small  space  seemed  filled  with 
an  electrical  and  visible  cloud  of  anger.  Then  the 
general  seized  his  cane  and  vanished  through  the 
front  door,  shutting  it  with  a  bang,  and  Father 
disappeared  into  what  was  called  the  "back  shop." 
There  was  no  need  of  waiting  for  him  to  go  home 
to  dinner.  I  knew  from  my  child's  experience  of 
him  that  he  would  pray  himself  calm,  however  he 
might  deal  with  the  blasphemer  afterward.  I 
had  a  fancy  myself  that  the  general  would  be 


YESTERDAYS 

visited  by  the  wrath  of  God  and  that  Father 
would  let  it  loose  upon  him. 

I  remember  another  instance  of  the  uprising 
of  the  "old  Adam"  which  savored  of  the  ven- 
geance of  the  Old  Testament.  I  suppose  that  in 
the  dead  level  of  life  in  the  small  community  there 
came  times  when  the  spirit  of  youth  and  man- 
hood fermented  to  the  bursting-point;  and  in 
one  such  period  certain  clever  ones  concocted  a 
new  "Book  of  Chronicles"  which  was  let  loose 
upon  the  community  in  printed  sheets  and  left 
stealthily  upon  door-steps.  There  must  have  been 
considerable  malicious  fun  in  imagining  the  seven 
unspotted  elders  of  the  church  going  about  in 
the  sinful  natures  which  were  supposed  to  dwell 
underneath  their  cloaks  of  Christianity.  ' '  Simeon, 
the  son  of  Adoniram  the  patriarch,"  "Abner,  the 
son  of  Abner  the  physician,"  and  "Jabez,  the  son 
of  Ezra  the  carpenter, "  tarrying  long  at  the  wine 
and  indulging  in  wicked  and  disreputable  deeds 
of  darkness.  Finally,  in  the  successful  flow  of 
composition,  they  were  made  to  do  things  which 
are  appropriate  only  to  out-and-out  criminals. 

The  whole  community,  except  the  small  portion 
which  laughed  in  secret,  were  aghast.  "Such 
sacrilege!  Such  unheard-of  profanity!" 

Father  did  not  talk.  He  had  the  one  man  whose 
intelligence  and  facility  as  well  as  general  law- 
lessness made  him  an  almost  certain  participant 
arrested  and  examined  under  oath  with  regard  to 
42, 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

his  knowledge  of  the  affair.  One  after  another 
of  his  circle  of  intimates  went  under  the  same  in- 
quisition, and  almost  before  the  surprise  and  dis- 
may at  the  birth  and  distribution  of  the  "Chroni- 
cles" had  subsided  every  participant  was  under 
arrest  for  slander  and  conspiracy  to  injure.  It  was 
too  unpopular  a  case  to  be  supported  either  moral- 
ly or  legally,  and  the  little  group  of  young  lawyers, 
doctors,  and  business  men  were  every  one  convicted 
and  punished.  I  know  that  Father,  as  principal 
prosecutor,  was  strongly  appealed  to  to  hold  his 
hand,  but  he  persisted  that  it  was  not  only  a  pun- 
ishment for  evil-doing,  but  a  lesson  to  evil-doers. 
In  looking  back  to  the  family  life  I  can  see  that 
it  was  a  center  of  very  lively  creative  interest. 
All  sorts  of  manufactures  were  accomplished  there- 
in— cheese-  and  butter-making  on  a  somewhat 
large  scale,  since  it  was  a  dairy  farm;  candle- 
making  for  the  family,  since  even  whale-oil  was  a 
commodity  which  need  not  be  purchased ;  smoking 
and  curing  of  meats;  storage  of  apples,  potatoes, 
carrots,  turnips, and  cabbages;  apple-paring, string- 
ing, and  drying;  making  of  sausages  and  pressed 
meats;  preserving  fruits  of  all  kinds;  pickling  in 
numberless  ways;  and  finally  spinning  and  weav- 
ing cloth  for  the  winter  wear  of  all  of  us,  big  and 
little,  and  managing  the  entire  outfit  of  a  family. 
How  this  was  accomplished  Heaven  only  knows. 
Of  course,  even  as  children  we  all  had  our  allotted 
share  of  labor.  To  this  day  I  remember  many  of 
43 


YESTERDAYS 

the  processes  of  those  home  industries  and  could 
practise  them.  Does  any  one  want  to  know  how 
to  "dip  candles"?  I  can  tell  them.  It  is  a  proc- 
ess of  gradual  accretion.  One  must  have  two 
six-foot-long  "candle-bars,"  which  are  two  stout 
sticks  placed  parallel  to  each  other,  two  feet  or 
more  apart,  with  ends  resting  upon  kitchen  chairs 
or  wooden  horses.  Then  the  bundles  of  slender 
three-foot-long  "candle-rods"  must  come  down 
from  the  garret,  and  each  one  be  furnished  with 
twelve  threads  of  the  candle-wick  which  has  been 
measured  and  cut  into  sixteen-inch  lengths  the 
night  before.  These  must  be  doubled  over  and 
twisted  from  the  rod  so  that  they  hang  in  eight- 
inch  lengths,  two  inches  apart.  Now  the  long 
wash-boiler,  filled  to  the  brim  with  melted  tallow, 
must  be  set  beside  the  bars  and  the  whole  under 
space  covered  and  double-covered  with  paper  to 
protect  the  floor  from  dropping  tallow.  Then  each 
long  candle-rod  is  lifted  from  its  place,  the  pendent 
wick  dipped  in  the  hot  tallow,  and  the  rod  replaced 
upon  the  bars.  After  every  wick  has  been  saturated 
with  the  hot  tallow  and  has  grown  slightly  cool, 
it  must  be  straightened  by  hand  until  the  candle- 
bars  look  like  companies  of  skeleton  tallow  sol- 
diers. Then  the  somewhat  lowered  boiler  is  filled 
from  a  pot  which  is  kept  hot  by  the  fire  and  the 
dipping  process  is  repeated.  It  is  great  fun  to 
see  the  wicks  grow  larger  and  larger,  gradually 
changing  into  stout,  long,  pointed  candles,  rows 
44 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

and  rows  of  them  hanging  from  the  rods,  while 
the  conference  as  to  "one  more  dip"  becomes  a 
matter  of  intense  interest.  Then  the  final  push- 
ing of  the  row  from  the  rods  and  cutting  off  of 
the  pointed  ends  so  that  the  candle  may  stand 
square  in  the  candlestick,  the  packing  into  candle- 
boxes  and  covering  them  away  from  rats  or  mice, 
the  melting  of  the  pointed  ends  and  laying  the 
newspapers  full  of  tallow  drops  in  pans  to  melt 
before  the  fire ;  finally  the  finishing  up  of  the  whole 
process  by  running  the  remaining  tallow  into  milk- 
pan  molds  and  putting  the  huge  cakes  on  the  top 
hanging  shelves  in  the  cellar  for  future  use.  If 
any  young  people  of  the  present  day  think  all 
this  is  not  fun,  they  had  better  try  it.  It  is  far 
more  interesting  than  a  candy-pull  or  any  of  the 
indoor  plays  and  games  which  have  survived  to 
amuse  the  later  generations.  Any  domestic  manu- 
facture which  is  not  constant  is  amusing  and  satis- 
fies the  eternal  passion  to  create.  I  can  see  that 
much  of  our  continual  occupation  was  also  a 
pleasurable  excitement. 

Mother  was  a  domestic  manufacturer.  She 
knew  the  various  trades  practised  in  the  house  and 
knew  them  well.  She  was  the  woman  of  Scripture, 
"looking  well  to  the  ways  of  her  household." 

As  a  family  we  did  not  belong  to  the  period  in 

which  we  lived.     We  were  actually  a  hundred 

years  "behind  the  times";  our  habits  of  thought 

and  practice  were  a  century  old.    We  were  living 

45 


YESTERDAYS 

in  1825  to  1830  and  forward,  exactly  the  life 
mentally  and  habitually  lived  by  the  men,  women, 
and  children  of  New  England  in  1725  to  1730 
and  forward.  Our  reading  was  the  same — the 
Bible  continually.  It  was  our  literary  bread. 
For  mental  exercise,  amusement,  and  improvement 
we  read  Young's  Night  Thoughts,  Pollock's  Course 
of  Time,  Milton's  Paradise  Lost,  and,  happily, 
The  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

There  were  certain  poems,  like  "The  Deserted 
Village"  and  "The  Cottar's  Saturday  Night," 
which  were  judged  to  be  safe  from  suggestions  of 
evil  and  were  therefore  allowed  us. 

I  had  a  fresh,  unburdened  memory  and  I  loved 
poetry  with  all  my  heart.  Consequently  pages 
on  pages  of  Young's  Night  Thoughts  and  Paradise 
Lost  lived  in  my  mind  and  rolled  through  it  in 
cadenced  procession.  Then  my  father,  seeing  in 
me  what  was  probably  a  kindred  predilection  to 
his  own,  began  to  collect  and  preserve  stray  poems 
which  appeared  in  the  National  Era  and  elsewhere. 
In  this  way  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  more 
modern  poets.  I  could  and  did  repeat  pages  of 
Milton  to  my  father  and  poems  selected  from  ribald 
poets  like  Robert  Burns.  His  "Cottar's  Satur- 
day Night"  was  one  of  our  favorites,  and  was 
like  a  sketch  from  our  own  life.  I  could  always 
see  Father  in  the  line, 

He  wales  a  portion  with  judicious  care; 
And  "Let  us  worship  God,"  he  says,  with  solemn  air. 
46 


IN    THE    BEGINNING 

And  the  "Gude  wife,"  who  ''gars  auld  claes  look 
amaist  as  weel's  the  new,"  was  Mother.  Father 
gave  me  a  morocco-covered  book — I  have  it  now 
— in  which  to  paste  stray  poems  which  he  gleaned 
from  newspapers.  In  it  are  many  of  Whittier's 
earlier  poems  and  some  of  Lowell's  first  anti- 
slavery  utterances  in  rhyme.  Long  afterward, 
in  that  then  undreamed-of  future,  I  amused  the 
latter  poet  by  repeating  from  end  to  end  "The 
Falcon,"  an  early  poem  which  he  had  quite  for- 
gotten. If  I  had  known  in  my  childhood  and 
youth  that  I  should  ever  in  my  life  talk  with  the 
men  who  wrote  the  melodies  which  fascinated  me, 
face  to  face,  I  should  have  felt  that  I  must  first 
be  translated  into  something  finer  and  more 
ethereal  than  a  mere  mortal.  I  could  not  imagine 
meeting  them  in  little  human  ways,  answering 
back  to  their  words  in  my  own — and  meanwhile 
there  I  stood,  a  little  soul  with  the  universe  flow- 
ing through  and  around  me. 

When  I  look  at  the  plain,  pleasant  faces  of 
little  country  girls  it  seems  to  me  strange  and 
mysterious  that  behind  their  shyly  reserved  and 
unresponsive  exterior  presence  there  may  be  some- 
thing which  is  trying  soul-flights  through  all  space 
and  no  one  is  aware  of  it — some  unlanguaged  soul 
which  dwells  within  and  may  never  find  a  voice, 
for  the  gift  of  expression  comes  to  but  few. 

I  am  conscious  of  something  like  a  shudder 
when  I  try  to  fancy  one  of  my  granddaughters 
47 


YESTERDAYS 

shut  up  in  a  primitive  farm-house  with  a  library 
composed  of  books  of  biblical  literature.  On  the 
top  shelf  of  the  bookcase  the  scientific  and  prac- 
tical books,  of  which  Dick's  Sidereal  Heavens  and 
Cobbett's  Cottage  Economy  were  the  most  secular 
features,  were  kept.  The  next  shelf  was  devoted 
to  poetical  works:  Milton's  Paradise  Lost  and 
Paradise  Regained,  Young's  Night  Thoughts,  and 
Pollock's  Course  of  Time.  Does  any  one  read  the 
last  named  now,  I  wonder?  There  were  Bibles 
and  Bibles,  and  commentaries  and  commentaries, 
but  no  Shakespeare. 

The  horrible  old  Book  of  Martyrs  was  there, 
with  pictures  of  them  all;  those  who  were  torn 
asunder,  those  who  were  broiled  on  gridirons, 
those  who  were  burned  in  good  plain  English 
fashion — John  Rogers  with  fagots  piled  all  around 
him  and  his  weeping  wife  and  nine  little  children 
trailing  away  from  the  pyre.  I  remember  St. 
Sebastian  as  full  of  protruding  arrows  as  a  pin- 
cushion is,  or  should  be,  of  pins;  and  the  picture 
of  a  holy  man  in  quite  complete  clothing  broiling 
over  a  slow  fire  under  the  eyes  of  a  Roman  em- 
peror to  whom  he  addressed  the  verse — 

"This  side  enough  is  toasted, 

Then  turn  me  around  and  eat; 
And  see  whether  raw  or  roasted 
I  am  the  better  meat." 

Certainly  no  thriller  among  modern  novels  could 
be  more  exciting  than  this  uncensored  tale. 
48 


IN    THE    BEGINNING 

So  far  as  devotional  and  concerted  music  was 
concerned,  we  were  a  musical  family.  As  our 
only  social  indulgence  was  the  singing-school,  nat- 
urally singing  together  was  an  outlet  for  much 
that  would  otherwise  have  been  unexpressed  in 
our  natures.  We  all  read  written  music  as  easily 
as  we  read  books,  and  although  sacred  music  was 
our  chief  practice,  lighter  music  was  not  under 
the  same  ban  as  light  literature.  We  could  sing 
Moore's  melodies  and  serenades  and  love-songs, 
although  novels  and  romances  were  forbidden. 
My  oldest  brother  played  both  bass  viol  and  flute 
and  had  a  lovely  tenor  voice.  My  elder  sister 
had  a  silvery  soprano  voice,  and  I  was  a  contralto, 
my  part  being  what  we  called  "second."  When 
Father  and  Mother  sang  with  us  we  were  fully 
equipped,  for  Father  sang  a  good  masculine  bass 
and  Mother  that  high  fifth  part  which  was  then 
called  counter.  I  wish  I  could  hear  "Coronation" 
sung  now  as  we  used  to  sing  it  with  our  five  voices, 
the  music  so  stately  and  magnetic.  I  think  it 
must  have  been  very  good  music,  although  as 
different  from  the  singing  I  hear  now  as  a  clear 
stream  of  water  gushing  fresh  from  its  source  is 
different  from  the  same  element  arranged  to  re- 
flect the  sky  in  marble-edged  spaces  or  springing 
in  fountains  in  the  midst  of  velvet  lawns.  The 
charm  of  this  concerted  music  rested  largely  on 
our  little  sister  Lucy,  the  beloved  song-bird  of 
the  family.  Her  lovely  voice  kept  its  melody  as 
4  49 


YESTERDAYS 

long  as  she  lived,  and  this  talent,  added  to  her 
beautiful  face  and  sympathetic  temperament, 
made  her  a  beloved  and  valued  member  of  the 
university  town  where  she  lived. 

To  bring  the  moral  and  mental  standards  of 
eight  healthy  children  up  to  the  ideals  of  our 
parents  required  constant  and  prayerful  leading, 
but  the  monotony  of  our  unnatural  effort  to  be 
good  was  greatly  relieved  by  our  grandmother, 
Father's  mother,  whose  tales  of  her  own  child- 
hood were  not  too  strongly  tinctured  with  piety. 
She  was  born  Lois  Pickering,  of  Salem,  and  as 
her  mother  died  in  her  childhood  she  and  her 
twin  sister,  Eunice,  were  sheltered  in  the  house  of 
their  uncle,  Timothy  Pickering,  who  had  much  to 
do  with  early  Colonial  history. 

There  must  have  been  some  ungodly  children 
in  Salem!  They  appeared  very  often  in  Grand- 
mother's tales  and  seemed  quite  alive,  for  she  had 
true  dramatic  faculty.  She  could  look  and  talk 
like  any  one,  old  or  young,  in  spite  of  a  four-inch- 
wide  cap  border  and  the  deep-set  eyes  which  were 
a  Pickering  trade-mark  and  traveled  all  down  the 
race.  Hers  was  a  well-peopled  mind.  A  host  of 
beings  of  all  ages  and  time  lived  in  her  memory 
and  stepped  forth  at  her  call  to  widen  the  mental 
horizon  of  her  grandchildren.  Years  afterward, 
when  I  was  the  mother  of  boys  at  Andover,  I 
stopped  on  one  of  my  mother-trips  to  have  a 
look  at  the  old  Pickering  house  at  Salem,  the  town 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

hall  where  the  records  of  the  witch-days  were 
kept,  and  the  custom-house  desk  where  Hawthorne 
wrote  the  House  of  the  Seven  Gables.  That  was 
especially  interesting  because  Julian  Hawthorne 
had  told  me  the  five-gabled  old  "Pickering  house" 
had  suggested  the  name. 

One  may  still  see  in  the  town  hall  a  small  glass 
bottle  half  filled  with  dusty  "witch-pins"  drawn 
from  the  flesh  of  children  afflicted  by  suspected 
witches.  The  children  swore  that  they  were 
driven  in  by  people  whose  names  and  faces  they 
knew,  principally  old  women,  whose  aged  aspect 
impressed  them. 

Grandmother  told  me  she  had  never  seen  her 
sister  Eunice  after  she  left  Salem,  until  they  were 
both  over  sixty.  She  knew  Eunice  had  married 
and  gone  to  Cleveland,  which  was  then  the  "far 
west,"  and  once  on  a  journey  to  New  England  she 
had  "come  out  of  her  way"  and  stopped  at  Delhi; 
so,  after  many  years,  the  twins  met  and  touched 
life  once  more  together.  They  were  born  in  the 
same  hour,  but  when  Grandmother  told  me  of  this 
reunion,  with  entire  lack  of  realization  of  the  fact, 
she  said,  with  a  look  of  dismay,  "And,  Cannie 
— she  was  an  old  woman!" 

I  have  never  quite  said  good-by  to  my  grand- 
mother, for  she  was  not  alone  the  wise,  tender, 
merry  old  lady,  with  a  wide  cap  border  over  a 
very  insistent  front  of  brown  adopted  hair,  and 
the  deepest  dark  eyes;  she  embodied  the  whole 
51 


YESTERDAYS 

progress  of  life  from  a  beautiful,  buoyant,  well- 
earned  Puritan  girlhood  through  a  stretch  of  pio- 
neer and  bravely  borne  vicissitudes  to  a  calm  and 
beautiful  old  age.  She  was  such  a  vital  creature, 
and  carried  so  much  of  the  early  history  of  the 
country  with  her,  that  I  have  remembered  her 
all  these  years  almost  as  if  she  herself  were  its 
history.  Through  her  and  her  wonderful  re- 
countings,  and  perhaps  through  a  gift  of  imagina- 
tion of  my  own,  I  seemed  to  know  old  Salem  and 
its  people  and  their  very  individualities  as  if  I 
myself  had  grown  up  among  them.  Every  serious, 
hard-faced  old  deacon,  every  wrinkled,  bright- 
eyed  old  lady  with  her  lace  cap  borders  flapping 
around  her  withered  face,  every  one  old  enough 
to  be  a  figure  or  an  actor,  lived  in  Grandmother 
Lois's  memory  and  could  walk  out  for  us,  fully 
equipped.  When  I  went  to  Salem  in  my  mature 
years,  and  rang  the  door-bell  of  the  five-gabled 
house  which  was  pointed  out  to  me  as  the  Picker- 
ing house,  and  sent  up  my  card  with  a  note  of 
self-introduction,  a  gracious  lady  came  flying  down 
the  stairs  to  greet  me  as  being  one  of  the  family. 
The  low-ceilinged,  beautifully  finished  rooms 
were  all  filled  with  things  I  was  revisiting.  I  had 
inherited  old  Salem  and  was  of  it.  Even  the  por- 
trait of  Timothy  Pickering  which  hung  over  the 
carved  sideboard  in  the  dining-room  might  have 
been  a  portrait  of  to-day  of  my  dearly  beloved 
brother  Frank,  whose  face  repeated  the  deep-set, 
52 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

sad-eyed  Pickering  characteristics.  We  were 
shown  all  the  family  treasures  by  the  gracious 
chatelaine — letters  from  Washington  and  the  men 
of  his  day,  things  which  were  history.  I  wonder 
if  that  little  .concentrated  bit  of  old  Salem  life 
is  to  live  in  a  conscious  or  unconscious  me,  all 
down  the  ages,  as  it  has  lived  through  the  ninety 
years  of  this  present  existence? 

When  I  was  shown  the  first  church  built  in 
Salem,  a  little  twenty-four  by  twenty-four  edifice, 
with  high  box-pews,  the  sight  of  it  recalled  one 
of  Grandmother's  "span"  stories,  as  we  used  to 
call  her  tales  of  the  twins.  She  would  often  ask 
whether  it  should  be  a  one-horse  or  a  span  story, 
and  we  always  chose  those  which  included  Eunice. 
It  seemed  her  father  had  brought  home  from 
Boston  a  side-saddle  for  his  two  girls,  while  a 
pillion,  on  which  the  woman  rode  behind  the  man 
of  the  family,  was  still  the  common  horseback 
equipment.  Of  course  there  was  immediate  ques- 
tion as  to  which  should  first  use  the  saddle,  and 
they  drew  lots.  Lois  drew  the  longest  slip  of 
paper  held  between  Eunice's  fingers  and  chose  to 
ride  to  church  the  following  Sunday,  which  she 
did  with  inward  exultation. 

After  the  sermon,  when  the  usual  opportunity 
was  given  of  asking  the  prayers  of  the  congrega- 
tion for  "any  one  in  need,  or  sickness,  or  in  sin," 
an  old  woman  arose  in  one  of  the  box-pews  with 
the  petition : 

53 


YESTERDAYS 

"The  Lord  appear  for  Lois  Pickerin',  all  so 
proud  on  her  new  side-saddle." 

When  Grandmother  told  the  story  she  mimicked 
the  voice  and  looks  of  the  cantankerous  old  body 
so  that  we  felt  we  had  been  there,  and  when  I 
stood  in  the  little  high-pewed  church  and  thought 
of  the  queer  old  days  when  Grandmother  was 
a  pretty  ten-  or  twelve-year-old  twin,  and  sat 
on  one  of  the  hard  seats,  and  suffered  mortifica- 
tion in  the  sight  of  the  holy  congregation,  the 
stream  of  her  very  blood  seemed  to  grow  hot 
within  me.  Of  course,  the  child  was  covered 
with  confusion  and  robbed  of  her  cloud  of  glory. 

But  she  outgrew  this  and  many  another  sorry  or 
joyful  experience,  and  so  came  to  the  mature  age 
of  sixteen  to  fall  in  love  with  a  gay  young  widower, 
Dr.  Abner  Thurber,  of  Providence,  who  had 
strayed  from  that  godly  settlement  to  the  still 
more  strict  one  of  Salem.  He  was  not  in  very 
good  repute,  this  doctor,  for  he  danced,  and  sang, 
and  whistled,  and  played  the  flute,  and  smiled  in 
the  faces  of  dignified  Puritan  fathers  as  well  as  of 
the  Puritan  girls;  but  Lois  fell  in  love  with  him; 
and  since  her  elders  were  quite  of  an  opposite 
mind,  this  characterful  chit  ran  away  from  her 
uncle  Timothy's  home  and  was  secretly  married 
to  the  gay  young  widower.  Both  of  them  dis- 
appeared from  Salem  forever,  Lois  leaving  her 
twin  sister  and  her  side-saddle,  to  ride  on  a  pil- 
lion behind  her  enchanter  or  walk  beside  him 
54 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

along  Indian  trails  to  the  far  Hudson  River;  then 
taking  ferry  across  it,  they  followed  devious  wil- 
derness ways  into  the  lake  region  of  New  York 
State  to  the  small  settlement  of  Cooperstown  on 
the  banks  of  the  musically  named  Otsego  Lake. 

Cooperstown  was  then  one  of  the  new  great 
claims  of  land,  marked  out  and  surveyed  by  the 
dominant  men  of  the  day,  who  had  secured  their 
patents  to  miles  of  land  on  the  easy  conditions 
of  the  government.  There  were  several  town  or 
village  sites  upon  each  of  the  manors,  chosen  for 
their  proximity  to  navigable  water.  The  water- 
ways helped  out  communication  with  other  settle- 
ments, floated  logs  to  a  market,  and  ran  grist- 
mills. 

To  this  little  newly  made  center  of  occupation 
came  the  man  Abner  Thurber  with  his  sixteen- 
year-old  wife,  and  they  brought  their  youth  and 
share  of  knowledge  and  instincts  for  freedom  and 
happiness  with  them.  They  seemed  to  have  been 
a  fun-loving  pair  in  spite  of  the  man's  twenty- 
eight  years  and  double  experience  of  marriage, 
while  his  doctor's  profession  was  a  boon  to  the 
small  group  of  human  beings  who  had  crept  for- 
ward into  the  wilderness.  Cooperstown  was  and 
is  a  beautiful  spot,  the  lovely  Otsego  Lake  re- 
flecting the  pine-covered  hills  and  the  swift- 
running  Susquehanna  pouring  out  a  brook-like 
current  which  bent  and  curved  through  swamp 
and  low-lying  land,  now  turned  into  sweet  em- 
55 


YESTERDAYS 

erald  meadows.  It  is  easy  to  reconstruct  this 
seedling  of  a  town  and  even  to  name  the  families 
which  made  up  its  original  roster. 

Judge  Cooper  had  brought  together  the  fam- 
ilies which  insured  to  him  his  "state  grant,"  and 
he  gave  the  town  its  name.  A  man  of  Grandfather 
Thurber's  profession  was  eagerly  welcomed,  and 
in  this  beautiful  lake  village  the  run-away  New 
England  lovers  began  their  married  lives. 

Four  boys  and  one  girl  were  born  to  them  before 
the  cheerful  doctor  ceased  his  fluting  and  dancing 
and  careless  fathering  of  children  and  passed  on 
into  the  shadow,  leaving  to  brave  and  plucky 
Lois  the  cost  and  effort  of  their  upbringing.  Pro- 
fessions were  dear  acquirements  in  those  early 
days,  possible  only  to  the  rich;  so,  Lois  taking 
counsel  with  her  friends,  apprenticed  every  boy 
in  turn  to  some  respectable  tradesman,  reserving 
for  herself  the  education  of  the  only  daughter. 
She  nursed  the  sick,  made  dainties  for  entertain- 
ments, sewed  fine  "India  mull"  into  wedding 
garments  for  brides,  and  linen  into  shrouds  for 
the  dead,  and  so  made  of  herself  a  veritable  in- 
stitution and  resource  in  this  pioneer  community. 

When  her  two  oldest  boys  had  finished  their 
apprenticeship — one  to  the  hatter's  and  one  to 
the  shoemaker's  trade — the  eldest,  who  had  up- 
held and  encouraged  his  mother  through  all  her 
troubles,  decided  to  move  on  into  the  wilderness, 
taking  a  newly  married  wife  and  his  mother  and 
56 


IN    THE    BEGINNING 

sister  with  him.  The  second  son  had  accomplished 
a  medical  education  "over  the  lapstone,"  as  he 
told  me,  sleeping  four  hours  out  of  the  twenty- 
four,  and  learning  his  trade  and  studying  his 
father's  medical  books  during  the  remaining 
twenty.  In  due  time  he  became  a  practising 
physician,  Dr.  Horace  Thurber,  of  Oswego. 
Verily,  the  making  of  American  citizens  four  gen- 
erations back  required  good  material! 

Father  was  apparently  his  mother's  chief  stay 
and  support,  and,  in  spite  of  her  unusual  char- 
acter and  activity,  he  was,  from  his  fifteenth  year, 
the  head  of  the  family.  Perhaps  this  very  weight 
of  responsibility  inclined  him  toward  all  serious 
and  elevated  things.  But  as  time  went  on  his 
unnatural  cares  lightened.  Younger  brothers  be- 
came self-supporting  and  he  found  time  to  fall  in 
love  and  marry. 

Mother's  maiden  name  was  Lucy  Dunham. 
Her  grandfather,  Dr.  Obadiah  Dunham,  came 
from  Providence  to  Cooperstown  when  that  was 
a  pioneer  town,  bringing  his  oldest  son  Abner, 
and  choosing  a  beautiful  parcel  of  acres  on  the 
flats  where  the  Susquehanna  flows  out  of  Otsego 
Lake.  The  two  men  chopped  out  forests  and  built 
a  house  before  the  family  came  to  the  new  settle- 
ment, bringing  with  them  the  wife  of  the  son 
Abner.  Mother  was  born  and  grew  up  in  this 
delectable  locality — "across  the  bridge"  from 
Cooperstown — and  was  familiar  from  childhood 
57 


YESTERDAYS 

with  all  the  wonderful  expedients  and  brave  re- 
sourcefulness of  the  pioneers.  I  remember  her 
telling  us  children  of  her  being  sent  out  at  night 
with  a  lantern  to  "water  a  web"  of  linen  spread 
out  to  bleach  on  the  grassy  edge  of  the  stream, 
and  how  a  large  black  dog  came  sniffling  around 
her  and  would  not  be  driven  away.  She  thought 
it  belonged  to  some  far  neighbor,  but  it  growled, 
and  when  she  had  hastily  finished  her  task  she 
ran  into  the  house  and  told  of  it;  whereupon  her 
father  took  down  his  gun  from  over  the  mantel- 
piece, called  the  two  dogs,  and  went  out.  There 
was  a  great  barking  and  fuss  outside,  but  she 
was  not  told  until  long  afterward  that  her  father 
had  shot  a  bear  cub  that  night  which  furnished 
the  family  with  fresh  and  salted  meat  for  weeks 
afterward.  Evidently  nerves  were  not  encour- 
aged in  pioneer  families. 

When  Mother  was  seventeen  she  taught  school 
at  Cooperstown  and  the  Cooper  children  were  a 
part  of  her  flock.  Isaac  and  Sammy  Cooper  were 
brothers  of  James  Fenimore  Cooper  who  had  been 
sent  to  England  to  study.  Sammy  one  day  was 
disobedient  and  idle,  and,  although  he  was  the 
son  of  Judge  Cooper,  Mother  undertook  to  dis- 
cipline him.  Her  first  switch  stroke  was  met  by 
a  struggle  and  an  uncompromising  butt  of  the 
boy's  head,  but  she  held  him  tightly. 

"Why,  Sammy,  what  do  you  mean?"  said  she. 

' '  Darn  you,you  begun  it !' '  was  the  panting  reply. 
58 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

Notwithstanding  this  early  intimacy  with  the 
author's  family,  none  of  Cooper's  popular  books 
were  open  to  us,  because  they  were  novels,  and 
no  novel  was  allowed  to  show  its  face  or  even  its 
back  in  our  Puritan  library.  Our  love  of  liter- 
ature had  to  content  itself  with  the  fiction  of 
Bible  parables  and  The  Pilgrim's  Progress,  be- 
cause "all  novels  were  untrue."  When  we  urged 
that  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  was  also  untrue, 
Father  explained  that  it  was  an  allegory,  and 
through  that  explanation  I  added  another  word 
to  my  yocabulary. 

Because  of  Mother's  and  Grandmother's  rem- 
iniscences, Cooperstown  life  and  history  were 
very  familiar  to  me.  Of  course  the  most  important 
figure  in  it  was  the  man  who  had  drawn  a  line 
around  this  great  tract  of  land  and  made  it  his 
principality.  Judge  Cooper  was  undoubtedly  a 
man  of  state  and  dignity  who  little  thought,  as 
he  walked  the  one  or  two  street -wide  pathways 
among  the  newly  gathered  homes,  that  he  would 
be  known  to  future  generations  only  through  the 
romances  of  preceding  days,  which  one  of  his 
children  should  write.  Be  it  noted  that  "Leather 
Stocking"  was  a  real  person  and  a  great  friend 
of  the  boy,  Jimmy  Cooper,  who  spent  most  of 
his  holidays  fishing  and  camping  with  him.  His 
cabin  was  far  up  the  lake  and  the  old  hunter 
only  came  into  the  village  to  bring  fish  and  deer 
meat.  He  always  wore  leather  leggings  which  he 
59 


YESTERDAYS 

tanned  himself,  stretching  and  nailing  them  on 
his  roof  for  periodical  salt-rubbings.  The  village 
children  christened  him  "Leather  Stocking." 

Cooperstown  had  grown  into  an  important  and 
successful  town  when  the  Thurber  family  left  it 
for  the  small  village  along  the  infant  Delaware. 
It  was  here  that,  with  Lucy  Dunham  Thurber's 
able  generalship,  my  father  established  the  home 
which  was  a  useful  center  and  brought  up  a  family 
which  has  always  taken  an  active  part  in  the 
world.  .  j,, 

I  think  it  was  chiefly  owing  to  Mother's  man- 
agement that  it  was  "a  home  of  plenty."  There 
was  always  enough  to  feed  and  clothe  and 
school  the  fast-growing  family.  There  was  al- 
ways a  silver  dollar  saved  to  drop  into  the  hat 
which  Deacon  Thurber  passed  from  pew  to  pew 
on  Sunday.  I  remember  a  large  red  and  yellow 
silk  handkerchief — "Father's  Sunday  handker- 
chief"— kept  to  spread  over  the  hat  before  it 
went  up  and  down  the  right  aisle  of  the  church. 
We  used  to  watch  Mother's  face  as  she  sat  soberly 
at  the  door  of  the  pew,  making  ready  to  drop  the 
frugal  dollar  into  the  hat,  and  I  remember  hear- 
ing Father  tell  her  how  Deacon  Meigs  would 
say,  when  they  counted  up  the  offering:  "There 
is  Mr.  Gould's  dollar!  He  never  forgets  that!" 
Mr.  Gould  was  the  one  rich  man  of  the  con- 
gregation, but  there  was  but  one  dollar  in  that 
collection. 

60 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

While  the  energetic  Lady  Lois  of  Salem  was 
fitting  herself  to  the  new  environment  at  Delhi, 
her  beloved  son,  Abner,  was  becoming  a  founder 
of  church  and  schools,  a  molder  of  public  opinion, 
and  a  helper  to  all  in  stress  or  strain  greater  than 
his  own.  He  bought  skins  and  furs  from  trappers 
and  hunters  and  sent  them  to  the  New  York 
market,  and  "journeymen"  manufactured  for 
him  beaver  under-fluffs  into  hats  which  also 
found  sale  in  New  York.  The  word  "journey- 
man" always  delighted  me,  it  was  so  descrip- 
tive of  the  class  of  men  who  bore  it.  They  were 
apprentices  who,  having  served  their  time  and 
learned  a  trade,  were  traveling  in  search  of  work 
during  the  interval  between  apprenticeship  and 
mastership.  My  father  also  managed  a  farm 
which  furnished  the  family  food  and  was  a  school 
of  industry  for  children  who  must  work  as  well 
as  play.  It  was  the  farm  that  unconsciously  taught 
us  the  book  of  Nature,  the  love  of  which  has  been 
one  of  the  richest  of  my  life  acquirements. 

One  periodical  excitement  of  our  lives  was  the 
"spring  freshet,"  when  the  snow  from  the  moun- 
tains was  washed  into  the  river,  which  soon  be- 
came a  raging  torrent,  cutting  us  off  from  school 
and  church.  I  could  easily  imagine  school  going  on 
without  us,  but  how  there  could  be  a  church  ser- 
vice without  Father  was  a  problem.  We  sat  on 
the  bank  of  the  flood  and  meditated  upon  the 
deluge,  while  we  watched  the  adventurous  rafts- 
61 


YESTERDAYS 

men  who  were  hooking  the  great  hemlock  logs 
together  and  tying  the  bobbing  bulks  into  plat- 
forms which  they  called  "colts."  The  "colts" 
were  waiting  for  still  more  breadth  of  turbulent, 
muddy  surface  when  they  would  be  joined  to- 
gether, four  of  them  into  a  great  platform,  and 
would  start  on  their  journey  to  far-off  Philadelphia. 

Brother  Lakin,  pastor  of  the  Methodist  church, 
was  a  renowned  pilot,  and  if  the  freshet  culminated 
on  a  Sunday  great  was  his  tribulation  of  spirit. 
It  was  told  of  him  that  he  left  the  pulpit  to  rush 
down  and  jump  on  a  "colt,"  just  as  it  was  leaving 
the  shore  on  one  inopportune  Sabbath.  The  ex- 
ploits and  adventures  of  the  raftsmen  and  the 
accidents  of  parting  logs  and  collisions  furnished 
the  danger  element  which  is  so  attractive  to 
virile  manhood. 

Things  come  to  me  out  of  the  past  which  are 
like  pictured  facts;  they  lack  the  roundness  of 
reality  and  yet  they  were  real.  I  remember,  for 
instance,  the  episode  of  the  "anti-rent  war," 
which  was  a  medley  of  excitement  and  confusion; 
of  night-marching  men,  and  crowds  in  the  maple- 
groves;  of  calico-costumed  companies,  and  the 
blare  of  horns  and  beat  of  drums,  and  the  im- 
posing figure  of  the  sheriff  on  horseback. 

I  had  a  child's  admiration  for  the  sheriff,  with 

whom   I   always   associated   a  big  sorrel  horse, 

vivid   of  color  and  prodigiously  graceful,   with 

prancing  steps  which. kept  time  to  the  waving  of 

62 


IN   THE    BEGINNING 

a  tail  silver  white  for  more  than  half  its  length. 
The  color  and  wavy  motion  somehow  suggested 
the  white  plume  of  Navarre  which  I  had  read  of  in 
history.  The  shot  which  killed  him  seemed  to 
have  destroyed  a  picturesque  figure,  an  essential 
part  of  the  pomp  and  grandeur  of  the  world. 
But  the  announcement  of  the  tragedy  was  com- 
monplace enough.  My  brother  came  rushing  into 
the  house,  shouting: 

"Father!  Father!  The  anti-renters  have  shot 
Bub  Steele!"  And  yet  this  familiarly  named  man 
had  stood  for  the  power  and  majesty  of  govern- 
ment, and  he  went  to  his  grave  accompanied  by 
the  music  of  bands  and  the  splendor  of  marching 
soldiers.  I  did  not  try  to  disentangle  the  real 
man  from  the  importance  of  the  things  in  which 
he  figured,  but  the  boys  did  it  ruthlessly  when  they 
said,  "They  make  a  great  fuss  about  Bub  Steele, 
don't  they?" 

The  anti-rent  war  was  the  revolt  of  farmers  and 
landowners  against  the  hereditary  tribute  of  a 
certain  number  of  bushels  of  wheat  or  corn,  or 
its  equivalent  in  money,  which  in  my  time  was 
still  paid  to  the  descendants  of  the  early  lords  of 
the  manor.  It  is  curious  to  look  back  to  the  time 
when  the  whole  of  New  York  State  and  the  eastern 
shores  of  the  Hudson  were  owned  in  enormous 
tracts  of  wilderness  by  a  few  clever  and  prom- 
inent men  who  had  acquired  titles  to  miles  of 
the  earth  surface  by  promises  of  settlement.  This 
63 


YESTERDAYS 

land  was  finally  parceled  into  farms,  and  cleared 
and  owned  by  hard-working,  energetic  pioneers 
who  paid  in  hard  cash  for  their  acres.  But  the 
patroons,  in  giving  title,  always  reserved  an  end- 
less right  to  a  certain  amount  of  the  produce  of 
the  land.  This  survival  or  adoption  of  feudal 
law  in  America,  of  everlasting  tribute  from  pur- 
chased land,  finally  became  an  irksome  and  un- 
righteous imposition  in  the  minds  of  the  small 
owners,  and  an  effort  was  made  to  have  it  removed. 
But  the  holders  of  the  ancient  usufruct  refused  to 
yield,  whereupon  disguised  and  armed  bodies  of 
men  and  boys  resisted  the  attempts  of  the  sheriff 
to  seize  property  to  satisfy  the  rent  claims.  I 
remember  the  marching  by  night  along  the  country 
roads  of  these  bodies  of  resistants,  the  blowing 
of  horns,  the  glimpses  of  queer  calico  trousers  and 
sheepskin  coats  under  wavering  torchlights,  and 
the  excitement  of  war  in  the  air. 

Of  the  subsequent  history  of  the  anti-rent  war 
I  knew  little.  It  ceased,  and  so  also,  after  a  time, 
did  the  paying  of  tribute ;  I  suppose  that  one  was 
a  consequent  of  the  other. 


Ill 

MARRIAGE   AND    BROOKLYN 

TT  was  apparently  a  long  way  from  the  seques- 
*  tered  farm-home  in  Delaware  Valley  to  the  art 
and  music  and  opportunities  of  New  York,  but  I 
had  started  on  the  life  path  which  led  to  it,  and 
every  separate  year  of  living  with  nature,  together 
with  the  companionship  and  teaching  of  my 
nature-loving  father,  was  destined  to  be  an  enrich- 
ment of  the  future.  I  grew  up  into  early  girlhood, 
drilled  in  all  the  expedients,  economies,  and  ac- 
complishments of  pioneer  and  country  life,  taught 
to  spin,  to  sew,  to  knit,  to  cook,  and  to  house- 
keep  by  my  wonderful  mother,  badgered  and  gibed 
into  becoming  humility  by  my  active  brothers, 
learned  in  maternal  duties  through  the  enforced 
care  of  a  succession  of  baby  brothers  and  sisters; 
and  so,  perhaps,  when  the  future  arrived  I  was 
not  altogether  unprepared  for  it. 

Some  one  has  said  that  a  woman  begins  her 

life  when  she  marries,  and  with  those  who  marry 

early  it  is  true.    At  all  events,  the  things  which 

happened   around   me   and   to  me,    before   that 

5  65 


YESTERDAYS 

event,  seem  like  a  story  which  concerns  some  one 
else,  and  not  at  all  the  present  me. 

In  my  day  there  were  very  few  unmarried 
women.  There  was  no  place  in  American  life 
for  them.  There  were  "old  maids,"  and  to  be  an 
old  maid  was  to  be  a  subject  of  pity  and  derision, 
almost  of  contempt. 

It  was  vaguely  felt  that  there  was  some  lack 
in  the  girl,  some  want  of  charm  or  sense;  or, 
at  the  very  least,  of  adequate  effort  on  the  part 
of  the  luckless  one  who  had  failed  to  attract  and 
secure  a  man. 

Did  we  stop  to  think — as  do  the  fine,  beautiful 
young  women  of  twenty-five  and  twenty-eight 
and  thirty  who  are  in  the  marrying  line  of  to-day 
— about  the  responsibilities  of  marriage,  or  the 
possible  habits  of  our  prospective  husbands  ?  Not 
at  all !  The  boys  were  too  young  for  fixed  habits, 
and  we  knew  little  and  thought  less  of  the  dan- 
gerous inherited  tendencies  so  dreaded  by  marry- 
ing women  of  the  present.  Did  we  question  the 
ability  of  the  boy-man  to  get  on  in  the  world 
and  make  proper  opportunities  for  a  growing 
family?  Not  in  the  least!  That  was  all  in  the 
future,  and  the  business  of  the  present  was  to 
become  a  married  woman. 

I  was  one  of  the  girls  of  that  period,  so  I  can 
tell  its  story.  In  those  days  a  girl  must  marry. 
There  was  nothing  else  for  her  to  do,  and  the  sooner 
the  better. 

66 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

In  the  life  of  the  country  town  in  which  I  grew 
up  there  were  no  girls  of  fortune  and  none  who 
were  self-supporting.  There  were  one  or  two 
elderly  single  women  who  "helped  themselves"  by 
school-teaching  or  giving  inadequate  lessons  upon 
the  piano,  and  these  two  pursuits  were  the  only 
ones  open  to  unmarried  women.  The  career  of 
a  powerful  and  competent  single  woman,  as  we 
know  it  to-day,  was  an  unheralded  dream.  The 
curious,  half -mysterious  self-sufficiency  of  such 
women,  together  with  its  triumphant  vindication 
by  large  results,  was  all  in  the  future,  and  mean- 
time we  married,  or  waited,  more  or  less  im- 
patiently, for  our  turn  to  come. 

For  the  present,  I  was  quite  sufficiently  occu- 
pied. There  were  books  in  the  bookcase,  con- 
stant and  necessary  work,  the  companionship  of 
the  very  human  crowd  of  school-girls  and  school- 
boys of  the  academy,  and,  above  all  and  through 
it  all,  our  beloved  music. 

Every  Saturday  night  we  went  to  "singing- 
school"  and  were  trained  in  sight  reading  and 
choral  music  by  "a  professor,"  who  lived  in 
Albany  and  circled  around  the  state,  setting  the 
pitch  and  beating  time  for  hundreds  of  young 
people  whose  pleasant  voices  created  a  musical 
atmosphere  in  every  small  detached  settlement. 
The  singing-school  was  held  in  the  basement  of 
the  Presbyterian  church,  and  we  four  elder  chil- 
dren walked  our  mile  there  and  back,  singing  as 
67 


YESTERDAYS 

we  went  and  came,  after  we  had  left  the  village 
street  and  had  crossed  the  little  foot-bridge  to 
our  own  side  of  the  river.  If  any  one  was  awak- 
ened from  early  toil-earned  sleep  by  our  fluting 
and  singing,  they  probably  explained  the  disturb- 
ances by  saying,  "Oh,  it's  only  them  Thurbers 
going  home  from  singing-school." 

I  think  at  this  time  I  had  passed  all  the  village 
boys  in  review  as  possible  future  life-partners.  I 
was  not  particularly  attracted  by  any  individual, 
but  I  realized  that  some  one  of  them  might  be  my 
fate,  unless  the  unexpected  happened  and  Heaven 
sent  me  a  special  man,  made  to  order  by  the  un- 
seen rulers  of  my  destiny. 

In  this  simplicity  of  environment  I  grew  to  the 
then  marriageable  age  of  sixteen  and  began  to 
think  of  a  married  future;  it  all  came  about  in 
a  very  natural  way. 

We  had  come  into  close  relations  with  our 
Presbyterian  pastor  and  his  wife,  both  of  whom 
were  young  and  musical,  and  both  from  New 
York  City.  I  think  they  found  in  our  family 
something  that  supplemented  the  meagerness  of 
country  life  and  country  church  administration. 
Father  was  senior  deacon  of  the  church  in  age, 
service,  and  character,  a  man  whose  intelligence 
and  integrity,  accompanied  by  an  unexpected 
strain  of  ideality,  made  him  an  interesting  mem- 
ber of  society,  while  his  musical  and  happy  brood 
of  children  were  as  amusing  and  new  to  the 
68 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

stranded  pastor  and  his  wife  as  would  have  been 
a  brood  of  singing  chickens.  We  became  at  once 
very  intimate  with  both,  much,  I  think,  to  the 
relief  of  our  parents,  who  were  sometimes  troubled 
by  a  lack  of  religious  quality  in  our  associates. 
In  my  case  the  friendship  was  very  ardent,  for 
Mrs.  Specs  was  beautiful  and  cultivated — a  de- 
scriptive word  which  I  had  never  before  seen 
humanly  illustrated — and,  above  all,  new  and  in- 
viting; so  we  fell  into  an  enthusiastic  friendship. 

It  happened — -and  here  perhaps  the  unseen 
powers  were  at  work — that  Father  allowed  me  to 
go  to  New  York  with  them  when  they  went  home 
for  a  spring  visit.  There  was  a  brother  in  the 
family,  ten  years  my  senior  and  rich  in  worldly 
experience;  naturally  he  proved  very  attractive 
to  my  inexperience,  and  within  a  year  I  was  his 
wife. 

We  were  very  poor  young  people,  but  we  did 
not  know  it.  I  had  been  schooled  to  self-denial, 
and  he  was  ambitious  and  untiringly  active — 
a  college  man  who  had  served  in  the  government 
corps  of  civil  engineers,  laying  out  roads,  canals, 
and  tracts  of  public  land  in  Illinois  and  Indiana. 
At  this  period  he  was  acting  as  bookkeeper  in  a 
New  York  commission  house. 

One  of  the  chiefs  of  the  house,  Mr.  Christopher 

Robert,  was  very  busy  during  the  years  of  my 

husband's  service  in  founding  the  Robert  College 

of  Constantinople.     I  have  always  felt  a  great 

69 


YESTERDAYS 

intimacy  with  this  important  pioneer  American 
college  in  Turkey,  because  the  figuring  of  its 
initial  budget  was  the  evening  employment  of 
my  busy  husband;  and  those  blocks  of  carefully 
computed  small  figures,  beautiful  to  look  at  in 
their  regular  orderliness,  were  the  icebergs  of  my 
pleasant  married  evenings.  When  we  had  safely 
weathered  them  my  husband  read  to  me — the 
long-forbidden  plays  of  Shakespeare,  the  torrid 
journeyings  of  Dante,  and  the  splendid  progress 
of  Godfrey  of  Bouillon  as  related  by  Tasso;  so 
I  became  familiar  with  the  great  poets  and  stories 
of  the  world  in  the  most  harmonious  atmosphere 
possible.  From  this  distance,  I  can  see  that  it  was 
like  stepping  over  a  century,  leaving  behind  me 
the  habits  and  thoughts  of  early  Puritan  life  and 
coming  into  a  new  world  of  advanced  thought 
and  intellectual  freedom.  My  husband,  a  uni- 
versity man,  with  a  natural  love  of  literature, 
found  in  my  unschooled  mind  a  good  follower 
and  an  eager  companion. 

When  the  first  year  of  married  life  was  ended 
the  inevitable  baby  had  arrived.  I  had  long  been 
a  more  or  less  unwilling  student  of  baby  lore  and 
had  graduated  into  practical  knowledge  of  baby 
wants  and  needs.  If  this  new,  wonderful,  my- 
very-own,  perfected  bit  of  heavenly  humanity 
cried,  I  had  no  need  of  a  trained  nurse  to  diagnose 
the  obstacle  in  its  generally  smooth-running  little 
river  of  life.  I  had  practical  knowledge  of  all 
70 


MARRIAGE   AND    BROOKLYN 

these  difficulties  and  set  myself  to  remove  them 
with  the  wide-awake  intelligence  of  seventeen — 
the  close  hourly  observation  of  a  ten-years'  course 
of  baby  tending,  quickened  by  mother  love.  And 
so  my  baby  thrived  and  grew  into  an  existence 
which  was  a  blessing  to  her  world,  and  lived  her 
thirty-two  short  years  in  an  inspired  perfection 
which  blessed  the  early  years  of  her  husband's 
life  and  shaped  the  future  of  her  two  children, 
Henry  L.  Stimson,  a  man  of  public  affairs,  and 
Candace  Stimson,  a  woman  of  wide  interests  and 
of  untiring  beneficence. 

The  early  years  of  our  married  life  were  spent 
in  Brooklyn,  which  was  then  so  merely  a  con- 
venience to  working  and  growing  New  York  as  to 
have  received  from  that  haughty  metropolis  the 
name  of  "The  Bedroom."  Yet  like  many  another 
gibe,  it  held  within  it  a  consoling  truth,  for  it 
was  not  only  the  resting-place  of  tired  workers, 
but  a  refuge  and  refreshment  to  many  who  were 
doing  great  work  for  the  world. 

My  man  and  I  were  fortunate  enough  to  make 
a  home  while  we  were  still  young  and  enthusiastic, 
and  it  interests  me  now  to  see  that  it  was  the 
quality  of  it  which  drew  around  us  the  friends 
whose  companionship  and  influence  made  life 
worth  living.  During  some  of  these  years  my 
younger  sister,  Lucy,  was  with  us,  going  daily  to 
New  York  for  the  training  of  her  beautiful  voice 
by  Madame  Seguin,  supplemented  by  the  teach- 


YESTERDAYS 

ing  of  our  neighbor,  Mr.  Erben,  for  many  years 
the  competent  organist  of  St.  Paul's  and  a  skilful 
master  of  the  piano.  Music  became  once  more  a 
large  part  of  the  family  atmosphere.  Lucy  con- 
tributed not  only  the  gift  of  a  wonderful  voice, 
but  youth  and  beauty  and  an  enticing  personality ; 
all  this  seemed  to  me  to  complete  my  ideal  of 
family  life.  A  newly  acquired  home  of  my  own, 
a  clever,  progressive  man  of  my  own,  and  a  baby 
girl  exactly  to  my  mind — quite  superior,  indeed, 
to  any  baby  of  my  knowledge  or  acquaintance — 
books  which  were  constantly  leading  me  into  a 
much  wider  world,  and  a  growing  circle  of  in- 
teresting and  amusing  friends — these  things  were 
enough  to  fill  my  life  with  joy  and  content.  Yet 
to  be  content  to  live  in  Brooklyn  was  always  a 
matter  of  wonder  to  people  who  lived  in  New 
York;  and  perhaps  even  now  the  persistence  of 
the  idea  continues  to  make  it  unpopular.  I  re- 
member that  not  so  many  years  ago  a  clever  Denver 
woman,  -who  was  inveighing  against  the  superior 
attitude  of  New  York  women  toward  those  of 
the  West,  characterized  it  by  saying:  "I  hate 
their  Brahmin  attitude!  They  treat  us  as  if  we 
lived  in  Brooklyn." 

I  was  very  well  satisfied,  and  even  proud  of  our 
pretty  home,  but  I  recall  a  supercilious  lady  of  that 
great  adjacent  world  who  came  to  call  upon  my  be- 
loved guest,  "Aunt  Pardee,"  to  whom  she  was 
greatly  indebted  for  summer  hospitality.  She  re- 
72 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

garded  our  sitting-room-library  with  a  certain  con- 
descending surprise  and,  looking  languidly  at  the 
books  upon  the  reading-table,  asked : 

"Who  reads  Dante  here?" 

"The  family,"  answered  my  aunt. 

In  those  early  days  Brooklyn  was  a  village  with 
green  fields  lying  against  its  narrow  length,  with 
all  of  pastoral  and  farming  Long  Island  spread 
behind,  and  the  great  barrier  of  water  between  it 
and  New  York. 

The  ferry-boats  were  not  too  crowded,  and 
people  went  over  to  New  York  for  pleasure  as 
well  as  for  business.  In  summer  afternoons  pretty 
Brooklyn  girls — and  there  were  many — crossed  the 
ferries  and  walked  the  length  of  Broadway  to 
Bond  and  Bleecker  streets — then  the  limit  of  resi- 
dence— meeting  on  their  returning  way  the  men 
young  and  old  who  had  left  their  down-town  offices 
at  five  o'clock  and  had  walked  up-town,  knowing 
that  they  should  meet  these  enchanting  girls  out 
for  an  airing. 

In  winter  great  sleighs  passed  and  repassed, 
the  sleighs  being  transformed  omnibuses  with 
bells  and  equipments  which  made  them  veritable 
arctic  pleasure-boats  for  the  merry  young  people 
who  filled  them. 

I  remember  vividly  the  flower  faces  of  the  girls 
of  that  period;  it  was  a  general  and  pervading 
beauty  which  now  I  find  to  be  only  occasional. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  best  American 
73 


YESTERDAYS 

type  has  always  been  a  beautiful  one.  So  long 
ago  as  when  Fanny  Kemble  Butler  wrote  her 
first  unpleasant  impressions  of  America,  she  asked, 
"Where  do  these  people  get  their  Greek  noses?" 
and  she  speaks  of  the  Greek  profile  as  being  char- 
acteristic of  our  race.  In  a  measure  we  have  lost 
it,  and  I  have  a  theory  that  it  is  because  an  ugly 
physical  type  came  in  with  the  pervading  crowds 
who  built  our  railroads  and  dug  our  canals  and 
performed  all  the  public  labor  of  the  country. 
The  face  of  the  Irish  laborer  of  that  day  was 
quite  different  from  that  of  the  trim  policeman 
or  prosperous  politician  of  the  present;  it  had 
not  lost  the  projecting  jaw  of  the  animal  kingdom. 
The  less  common  German  type  was  heavy  and 
crudely  cut,  and  these  two  strongly  marked  faces 
were  to  be  seen  everywhere.  Just  why,  under  the 
advent  of  two  physically  ugly  races,  a  beautiful 
one  should  have  suffered  an  eclipse,  not  mani- 
festly caused  by  mixture,  who  can  tell?  Was  it 
the  subtle  and  persuasive  power  of  strong  ugli- 
ness which  pervaded  the  very  air? 

However  that  may  be,  pure  American  beauty 
seemed  to  be  lost  for  a  time.  One  seldom  saw  a 
typical  American  face,  and  there  was  no  Celtic 
beauty  in  the  Irish  and  German  laboring  classes 
to  atone  for  the  loss.  Gradually,  however,  the 
peasant  crudeness  disappeared,  the  wide-open  nos- 
trils and  projecting  mouth  which  the  Irish  emi- 
grant brought  to  the  country  became  less  and 
74 


MARRIAGE   AND    BROOKLYN 

less  marked  with  every  succeeding  generation, 
and  an  Irish  type  of  beauty  began  to  appear. 
The  blue-gray  eyes  and  black  hair  remained,  but 
the  repellent  mouth  disappeared.  Prosperity  and 
climate  had  done  their  work,  and  in  like  manner, 
slowly  but  surely,  the  heavy  roundness  of  the 
German  type  was  eliminated. 

Of  late  years,  since  the  wave  of  foreign  labor 
has  become  so  pronouncedly  Italian,  I  have  been 
glad  to  think  that  there  was  no  racial  ugliness  in 
it  to  overcome.  In  fact,  we  have  something  to 
gain  instead  of  to  lose  in  physical  characteristics 
by  contact  with  the  Latin  type. 

I  remember  that  in  those  days  crossing  the 
ferry  was  a  constant  source  of  interest  to  me. 
There  was  always  a  long  row  of  faces  to  study 
— faces  which  told  just  what  sort  of  experiences 
life  had  given  the  consciousness  which  lived  behind 
them,  and  bodies  which  chanted  their  own  story 
of  work  or  occupation.  For  example,  there  was 
the  sweet  old  Quaker  mother  of  a  prosperous 
Long  Island  family,  wife  of  a  successful  and  pros- 
perous farmer  who  had  "thee'd  and  thou'd"  her 
with  constancy  and  love  through  half  a  century, 
and  of  course  she  would  wear  a  Quaker  bonnet, 
lined  with  half-transparent  thin  white  silk  with 
little  plain  lace  borders.  I  liked  the  style  so  well 
that  after  we  moved  to  "Nestledown  "  and  became 
part  of  "The  Island"  population,  and  finding  an 
ordinary  bonnet  no  shelter  to  my  eyes  on  our 
75 


YESTERDAYS 

long  and  constant  drives,  I  went  to  a  Quaker 
milliner  and  ordered  a  bonnet.  The  friendly  mil- 
liner told  the  story  of  the  passing  of  creeds  and 
fashions  when  she  asked,  "Does  thy  mother  wear 
gray  or  drab?" — taking  it  for  granted  that  the 
order  came  from  a  previous  generation. 

The  bonnet  was  a  great  success,  and  as  for  the 
cap  I  was  so  well  satisfied  with  myself  in  it,  and 
it  satisfied  so  thoroughly  the  man  of  my  choice, 
that  I  copied  and  wore  it  mornings  for  the  full 
period  of  my  Long  Island  experiences.  The  outfit 
was  rather  incongruous  with  the  high-stepping 
trotter  which  I  drove  to  the  Flushing  nurseries 
for  trees  and  more  trees;  and  I  was  somewhat 
startled  at  being  "thee'd  and  thou'd"  by  the 
owner  of  the  nursery,  when  he  asked,  "Where 
does  thee  go  to  meeting?" 

But  there  were  other  people  to  be  looked  at 
on  the  ferry-boats  besides  the  dear  old  Quaker 
ladies — clerks  and  merchants,  students  and  teach- 
ers, laboring-men  and  sewing-women,  prosperous 
shoppers  and  pretty  Brooklyn  girls,  and  every 
day,  in  time  for  the  afternoon  train,  that  notable 
man,  William  Cullen  Bryant. 

The  Long  Island  road  had  a  branch  to  Roslyn, 
and  the  station  was  at  South  Ferry.  Mr.  Bryant 
was  nearly  always  alone,  nearly  always  absorbed 
in  a  newspaper,  always  self-absorbed;  noticing 
no  one,  he  moved  through  the  crowd  or  sat  against 
a  window  in  the  line  of  faces,  thinking  his  own 
76 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

thoughts,  which  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with 
the  people  and  things  about  him.  Very  occa- 
sionally Mrs.  Bryant  would  be  there,  always  with 
her  hand  on  his  arm — or  perhaps  his  tired-looking 
eldest  daughter,  Mrs.  Parke  Godwin,  and  the 
man,  Parke  Godwin,  burly  and  attractive,  not  too 
conscious  of  his  four  or  five  hovering  children, 
but  admiringly  conscious  of  the  groups  of  pretty 
Brooklyn  girls. 

I  made  unwritten  notes  of  them  all,  little  think- 
ing I  should  ever  chatter  to  the  poet  and  that 
he  would  listen,  or  that  I  should  become  a  close 
friend  of  the  younger  daughter  and  be  known  of 
the  Godwins  through  many  passing  years. 

When  I  contrast  the  costly  Brooklyn  homes  of 
to-day  with  the  modest  ones  of  that  yesterday  of 
which  I  am  writing,  I  see  that  the  values  of  ma- 
terial and  perhaps  immortal  things  have  experi- 
enced great  changes.  For  instance,  I  remember 
quite  a  general  consensus  of  disapproval  of  one  of 
our  neighbors,  the  cause  of  which  seems  now 
almost  unbelievable.  This  lady  had  been  looked 
upon  previously  with  much  respect  as  a  frequent 
contributor  to  magazine  literature  and  as  a  poetess 
of  some  reputation.  She  lived  in  our  street,  a 
block  west  of  us,  and  was  consequently  obliged 
to  pass  the  house  so  often  to  reach  the  ferry  line 
of  cars  that  her  goings  and  comings  were  a  subject 
of  family  comment.  At  that  date  to  be  called 
"strong-minded"  was  quite  the  reverse  of  praise, 
77 


YESTERDAYS 

and  this  lady  was  strong-minded;  that  is,  she 
did  what  seemed  right  and  good  to  her  without 
regard  to  other  people's  tastes  or  inherited  opin- 
ions, her  own  being  freshly  manufactured  and 
personal.  She  wore  short  dresses  of  "bloomer" 
fashion,  because  long  skirts  gathered  dust.  She 
wore  her  hair  short,  because  it  curled  so  tightly 
that  it  was  as  impossible  for  combing  as  a  young 
cedar-tree.  In  short,  she  did  what  other  people 
did  not,  and,  although  her  short  dresses  were  tidy 
and  her  curls  becoming,  she  was  a  byword  even 
to  the  street  boys,  and  I  felt  condemned  for 
knowing  her  and,  in  my  secret  heart,  preferring 
her  to  my  long-skirted,  long-tressed,  more  con- 
ventional neighbors. 

But  the  crowning  indiscretion  of  the  woman's 
life  was  her  devotion,  in  an  admiring  and  pitying 
way,  to  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  who  lay  slowly  dying 
in  his  little  roadside  house  in  that  upper  region  of 
New  York  which  is  now  called  "The  Bronx." 
She  went  there  daily — this  far  too  previous  wom- 
an— carrying  delicacies  for  the  poet  and  lavishing 
her  husband's  substance  upon  the  family  of  a 
man  who  had  no  other  claim  to  this  devotion  than 
that  of  having  written  a  poem  called  "The  Raven" 
and  a  piece  of  jingling  rhyme  known  as  "The 
Bells." 

This  was  the  average  contemporary  sentiment 
regarding  Edgar  Allan  Poe  in  the  "City  of 
Churches,"  as  Brooklyn  was  called;  but  one 
78 


MARRIAGE   AND    BROOKLYN 

woman  openly  braved  it,  and  probably  many, 
even  in  his  lifetime,  came  to  know  that  his  melodies 
were  played  upon  a  deathless  string. 

I  suppose  Brooklyn  was  no  better  in  those 
self-righteous  days  than  now,  but  it  was  certainly 
far  less  liberal  in  judgment  of  constitutional  frail- 
ties. Now,  indeed,  it  would  be  a  distinction  to 
have  ministered  to  that  poor  poet  with  the  mel- 
ancholy eyes  and  the  gift  of  immortal  harmony. 

That  was  also  the  period  of  smaller  and  more 
respectable  poets;  of  George  P.  Morris,  and 
Nathaniel  P.  Willis,  and  Fitz-Greene  Halleck, 
and  Joseph  Rodman  Drake,  and  many  another  of 
the  forgotten  singers  who  trilled  their  little  lays 
for  their  audiences  of  the  day,  quite  unconscious 
that  of  the  music  of  their  time  and  circle  only  the 
great  numbers  of  "Thanatopsis"  and  the  ringing 
changes  of  "The  Bells"  would  sing  for  generations 
yet  unborn.  Poor,  vanished  poets!  How  could 
any  one  of  them  know?  How,  indeed,  can  any 
one  ever  know  if  one's  utterances  have  immortal 
quality?  Each  one  says  what  is  given  him  to  say, 
he  repeats  what  he  hears  from  some  inner  voice 
which  talks  to  him  in  silence,  not  knowing  the 
rank  in  the  over-world  of  the  being  who  has 
chosen  him  for  a  mouthpiece,  whether  it  may  be 
as  great  as  the  greatest  of  that  spiritual  throng 
or  as  weak  as  the  weakest. 

But  whether  they  belonged  to  the  greatest  or 
the  least,  it  was  a  privilege  to  see  the  singers  of 
79 


YESTERDAYS 

the  world,  and  we  saw  them  all  at  one  time  or 
another  at  the  "Artists'  Receptions."  Literature 
and  art  were  represented  by  comparatively  few 
people,  and  those  who  represented  them  were 
drawn  much  more  closely  together  than  now, 
when  literature  and  art  are  often  common  pur- 
suits of  the  same  person.  Now,  it  seems,  one 
need  not  wait  to  find  whether  he  has  special 
gift  for  either  vocation.  In  painting,  particularly, 
so  many  different  aptitudes  are  available  that 
the  subtle  personal  quality  which  distinguishes 
the  born  artist  from  the  skilful  workman  can 
easily  be  dispensed  with. 

An  "Artists'  Reception"  was  a  real  function 
in  the  forties  and  fifties — a  gathering  together 
of  all  the  personalities  that  had  stepped  out  of 
the  ranks  and  had  become  noticeable. 

There  were  painters  among  them  whose  pictures 
are  still  considered  valuable  in  comprehensive 
collections,  although  the  school  to  which  they 
belonged  no  longer  exists;  and  there  were  those 
who  helped  form  the  literary  taste  of  America, 
as  well  as  others  whose  words  have  fallen  through 
the  winnowing  sieve  held  in  the  hands  of  pos- 
terity and  shaken  by  the  impertinent  years. 

Morris  and  Willis  were  very  well  known  in  that 
day  as  the  editors  of  the  New  Mirror,  a  thin  and 
perhaps  triflingly  graceful  magazine,  which  held 
a  place  of  importance  chiefly  on  account  of  its 
two  well-known  author-editors. 
80 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

I  remember  being  very  much  impressed  by 
Willis's  personality;  he  was  large  and  blond  and 
apparently  quite  interested  in  the  people  he  met; 
he  looked  and  was  really  and  emphatically  a 
society  man,  and  he  could  gossip  charmingly  of 
notable  people  both  in  America  and  in  England. 
I  have  very  good  reason  to  remember  the  New 
Mirror,  the  numbers  of  which  came  to  me  weekly 
during  the  last  year  of  my  girlhood  from  the  man 
who  stood  at  the  gate  of  my  future.  There  is  a 
book  of  its  early  numbers,  sewed  carefully  to- 
gether, in  the  under-drawer  of  my  desk  —  this 
very  desk  where  I  am  writing;  and  if  I  cut  the 
restitched  threads  at  the  back  of  the  leaves  of 
each  number  I  come  upon  seventy-odd-year-old 
love-letters,  written  in  the  finest  of  words  and 
lines,  just  such  love-letters  as  my  youngest  grand- 
daughters are  receiving  to-day — so  far  as  the  sub- 
ject-matter is  concerned — but  far  more  exquisitely 
written  and  quite  without  the  freedom  and  cam- 
araderie of  modern  love-letters. 

Their  coming  to  me  in  this  way  was  a  matter 
of  postage,  for  my  young  man  was  a  clerk  in  a 
commission  house  in  New  York,  and  poor,  as 
were  most  young  men  of  his  generation;  conse- 
quently twenty-five  cents  postage  for  letters  (for 
that  was  the  price  of  postage  in  those  days)  was. 
an  expense  to  be  avoided  if  possible.  My  father 
disapproved  of  this  way  of  transmitting  love- 
letters;  he  thought  it  was  "defrauding  the  gov- 
6  81 


YESTERDAYS 

eminent,"  and  I  suspect  it  gave  him  a  half- 
unwilling  doubt  as  to  the  moral  fiber  of  my  en- 
terprising young  man,  despite  the  fact  that  he 
was  the  brother-in-law  of  a  minister. 

Our  Brooklyn  days  were  from  '44  to  '54  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  the  noticeable  men  of 
that  time,  whom  we  used  to  meet  at  receptions 
and  studios,  and  sometimes  at  friends'  houses, 
are  many  of  them  almost  unknown  by  name  to 
readers  and  people  of  the  present  day;  they  have 
fallen  through  the  sieve  and  are  unrecognized 
by  the  present  generation.  If  I  speak  of  John 
G.  Saxe,  as  a  classmate  of  my  husband's,  a  pleasant 
Brooklyn  neighbor,  and  a  popular  poet,  some  one 
of  my  sufficiently  intelligent  children  or  grand- 
children will  be  apt  to  say:  "Who  was  he?  I 
never  heard  of  him."  These  educated  middle- 
aged  people  have  "never  heard  of  him,"  nor  of 
George  P.  Morris  and  N.  P.  Willis  and  William 
Allen  Butler  and  Fitz-Greene  Halleck;  yet  not  to 
have  known  the  work  of  these  men  in  the  middle 
fifties  would  have  been  simply  disgraceful.  More- 
over, my  sophisticated  grandchildren  will  in- 
terrogate me  minutely  about  some  contemporary 
of  these  men.  They  would  like  to  hear  my  gossip 
about  Charlotte  Cushman;  and  Fanny  Kemble 
Butler  in  her  beautiful  first  youth;  and  Wash- 
ington Irving,  whose  long,  pleasant  face  and  sus- 
piciously brown-thatched  head  were  even  more 
familiar  to  me  than  his  printed  words ;  and  Bryant 
82 


MARRIAGE   AND    BROOKLYN 

— "Oh  yes,  of  course!  Why,  everybody  knows 
Bryant!"  Is  it  because  these  other  men  did  not 
make  books  or  because  the  books  are  dead?  Per- 
haps they  did  not  write  real  books — only  current 
literature,  "things  for  the  paper."  Even  I  do  not 
know  many  of  their  books,  but  I  remember  their 
sparkling  articles. 

One  of  our  first  and  most  generous  and  kindly 
friends  was  T.  B.  Thorpe,  a  man  well  known  in 
his  day  as  both  writer  and  artist.  He  was  of  the 
"Harper  staff,"  clever  in  many  ways,  a  successful 
landscape-painter,  and  a  man  whose  speech  was 
a  special  gift.  He  loved  painting,  but  lived  by 
literature,  and  was  a  favorite  member  of  the  society 
of  painters  and  writers.  Indeed,  we  owed  it  to 
him  that  we  were  gradually  included  in  the  set 
of  people  who  did  things  —  that  is,  who  were 
creators — although  we  were  at  that  time  only 
appreciators. 

I  remember  well  Mr.  Thorpe's  first  visit,  be- 
cause of  just  one  word  of  characterization  of  our 
baby,  who  had  been  brought  in  for  inspection 
by  her  father's  friend  and  college  classmate.  She 
sat  upon  her  father's  arm,  a  shapely,  grave  little 
figure,  and  regarded  him  with  solemn  eyes  and 
mouth,  where  expression  waited  upon  judgment. 
The  classic  oval  of  her  small  face  excited  T.  B.'s 
admiration,  but  her  want  of  ready  responsiveness 
was  a  trifle  repellent.  "My,"  said  he,  "what  a 
genteel  baby!"  It  was  a  clever  use  of  an  old- 
83 


YESTERDAYS 

fashioned  word  which  was  soothing  to  both  visitor 
and  visited,  and  which  fitted  the  baby  marvelously. 

"When  the  Thorpe  family  came  to  Brooklyn 
it  was  from  New  Orleans,  where  Mr.  Thorpe  had 
been  doing  journalistic  work  almost  since  his  col- 
lege days.  They  brought  with  them  an  old  family 
slave  called  Judy,  who  had  nursed  and  tended 
the  three  children,  and  who,  as  usual  in  old  slavery 
days,  was  perfectly  one  of  the  family.  Judy  did 
not  take  to  Northern  ways.  She  missed  the  kindly 
camaraderie  of  the  slave  service,  and,  being  her- 
self of  noticeable  looks  and  character,  the  Irish 
servants  of  neighbors  made  her  a  mark  for  their 
gibes. 

At  that  time  Brooklyn  depended  upon  street 
pumps  for  its  supply  of  water,  and  it  was  the 
custom  for  the  servants  of  all  the  families  to 
meet  at  a  pump  corner  in  the  early  morning  and 
secure  the  daily  domestic  supply.  At  this  con- 
vocation Judy  found  herself  a  stranger  and  an 
alien,  and  consequently  was  not  happy.  One 
Sunday  morning  the  boy  of  the  Thorpe  family, 
finding  her  in  a  corner,  knitting,  remonstrated 
with  her. 

"Judy,  don't  you  know  you'll  never  go  to 
heaven  if  you  knit  on  Sundays?" 

"Oh,  laws,  Massa  Tom,"  she  responded,  "I 
don't  want  to  go  to  heaven  from  Brooklyn; 
shouldn't  like  dat  part  of  heaven  where  the 
Brooklyn  folks  be!" 

84 


MARRIAGE   AND    BROOKLYN 

What  a  sermon  was  this  for  the  critical  under- 
world if  they  could  but  have  heard  it!  Poor  old 
Judy !  The  free  North  was  too  much  for  her,  and 
her  misery  became  a  family  affliction  which  was 
finally  ended  by  her  being  sent  back  to  a  friend 
in  New  Orleans  who  was  willing  to  be  responsible 
for  the  comfort  of  her  old  age. 

The  Thorpes  lived  in  a  small  wooden  house 
accidentally  left  over  among  the  blocks  of  houses 
on  "The  Heights,"  but  the  people  who  frequented 
it  were  not  left-overs;  they  were  all  men  who 
had  come  to  the  front  in  every  line  requiring 
cleverness.  Mr.  Thorpe  was  incurably  given  to 
small  home  dinners  of  from  six  to  eight  guests, 
any  one  of  whom  could  have  furnished  wit  and 
wisdom  for  a  dull  dozen.  I  said  our  friend  gave 
these  dinners,  but  in  truth  it  was  a  partnership 
affair  between  himself  and  Mary,  the  cook,  who 
was  cook,  waiter,  and  general-in-chief  of  the  whole 
small  establishment.  Mary  also  loved  to  give 
dinners — if  the  guests  were  to  her  liking — and  her 
taste  in  guests  quite  equaled  her  skill  in  providing 
for  them.  One  night  it  was  a  dinner  of  six,  one 
member  of  which  was  Mr.  Genoux,  a  charming 
and  genial  French  painter  whose  face  and  even 
his  head — bare  of  hair  as  an  apple — seemed  to 
radiate  enjoyment.  Mary  was  well  known  to  all 
these  men,  and  her  attendance  as  well  as  her 
cookery  was  highly  appreciated. 

This  particular  dinner  was  a  notable  success, 
85 


YESTERDAYS 

and  the  morning  after  Mary  climbed  from  her 
basement  to  our  friend's  small  third-floor  writing- 
room  to  receive  her  meed  of  praise  and  exchange 
words  of  satisfaction. 

' 'Shore  'twas  an  illigant  dinner,"  said  she. 

"It  was,"  said  the  master;  "everybody  said  it." 

"And  Mr.  Genoux,"  she  continued,  "was  the 
finest  of  them  all,  wid  not  a  hair  betwane  him  and 
hiven!" 

It  was  during  the  years  of  our  Brooklyn  life 
that  our  second  child  came  to  us;  a  boy,  to  his 
father's  delight,  more  than  made  the  masculine 
balance  of  the  family.  His  boyishness  asserted 
itself  as  a  dominant  element  while  he  was  still  a 
baby,  and  stirred  the  quiet  life  of  the  family  into 
currents  and  bubbles  before  he  had  learned  that 
one  end  of  his  body  was  made  for  walking.  Even 
the  tame  canary,  who  had  been  used  to  sitting  on 
my  toilet-table,  trying  to  partake  of  all  my  activ- 
ities of  brushing  and  plaiting,  took  refuge  on  the 
tops  of  doors  and  furniture,  although  he  often 
sat  fearlessly  among  the  flaxen  thatching  of  the 
"genteel  baby."  As  soon  as  the  child  could  walk 
we  were  startled  by  occasional  disappearances  of 
his  robust  little  personality,  and  one  morning  he 
was  missing  before  breakfast-time.  Every  corner 
of  the  house,  even  to  basement  and  cellar,  was 
ransacked  in  vain.  A  street  search  was  finally  in- 
stituted, which  was  interrupted  by  the  appear- 
ance of  a  neighbor's  maid,  carrying  our  triumphant 
86 


MARRIAGE   AND    BROOKLYN 

nightgowned  youngster,  while  he  in  turn  clasped 
a  little  cage,  filled  with  cotton-wool,  in  the  depths 
of  which  cowered  a  tiny  marmoset,  the  cherished 
object  of  our  childless  neighbor's  care. 

The  boy  was  claimed,  and  the  marmoset  re- 
turned, not  without  kicks  and  howls  from  its 
captor.  For  days  the  question  of  the  family  was, 
"How  on  earth  did  the  child  get  out  unobserved, 
and  how  could  he  have  known  of  the  existence  of 
the  monkey  and  where  it  was  kept?"  The  first 
question  was  answered  by  the  possibility  of  the 
front  door  having  been  left  open  by  the  maid, 
whose  duty  it  was  to  sweep  the  sidewalks  while 
the  family  was  dressing  or  dreaming.  But  the 
second  continued  to  be  an  unsolved  mystery.  I 
think  his  father  was  delighted  with  this  trick; 
indeed,  he  expressed  it  by  saying,  "If  he  wants 
a  thing  he  goes  for  it,  and  I  hope  he  will  keep  it  up. " 

He  did  keep  it  up,  much  to  my  anxiety  and 
dismay.  Sometimes  I  compromised  his  possibili- 
ties by  taking  him  with  me  when  I  went  out; 
and,  although  many  years  have  hung  their  veils 
between  then  and  now,  I  remember  a  morning 
when  I  stood  at  the  South  Ferry,  holding  his 
little  hand  tightly  in  mine  while  horses  and  men 
were  rushing  to  the  boat,  and  omnibuses  stood  wait- 
ing for  passengers  or  were  starting  toward  their 
various  destinations.  Just  as  the  first  one  rolled 
off,  the  little  hand  in  mine  slipped  away  and  a 
white-and-blue-coated  boy  started  with  flying 
87 


YESTERDAYS 

skirts  for  the  departing  omnibus.  Almost  before 
I  realized  that  it  was  my  boy  he  reached  it  and 
was  clinging  to  the  step;  then  he  climbed  the 
latter  and  sat  joyously  under  the  dangerous  closed 
door.  Of  course  I  ran,  and  of  course  I  screamed, 
and  as  soon  as  the  crowd  around  me  saw  the 
situation  it  ran  and  shouted;  the  driver  turned 
his  head  to  see  what  was  the  matter,  and  one 
blessed  man,  nimble  -  witted  and  long  -  armed, 
reached  out  and  rescued  the  child  and  waited  for 
the  frantic  mother  who  had  started  this  commo- 
tion. I  thanked  him  with  a  face  crumpled  out  of 
shape  and  a  voice  which  wavered  all  over  the 
scale,  and  that  was  the  end  of  my  promenades  with 
the  boy  alone,  and  the  beginning  of  a  longing  for 
a  ten-acre  lawn,  free  from  crowds  and  omnibuses 
and  ferries  and  populated  only  with  grasshoppers 
and  caterpillars  and  birds  which  he  could  not 
catch.  In  my  troubles,  my  sister  and  husband 
comforted  me,  family  fashion,  by  telling  me  that 
I  had  "not  a  firm  enough  hand  with  the  boy," 
and  fortified  their  position  by  repeating  his  speech 
when  one  day  his  aunt  called  him  to  "come  down- 
stairs." 

"Is  it  Aunt  Lu  or  is  it  mamma?"  he  asked. 

"It  is  Aunty  Lu." 

"Well,  den,  I'll  turn."  And  he  came. 

If  I  could  have  realized  at  the  time  that  this 
child  was  born  an  earth-wanderer,  impelled  by 
some  controlling  power  to  test  every  physical 
88 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

fact  and  study  at  first  hand  every  condition  of 
life,  I  should  undoubtedly  have  enjoyed  my 
motherhood  of  a  boy  to  a  much  greater  degree; 
but  for  real  solid  mother  comfort  I  could  always 
fall  back  upon  the  girl  whose  transparent  little 
soul  I  could  read  and  understand. 

The  first  "Artists'  Reception"  I  remember  was 
held  at  "Dodworth's,"  for  there  was  no  Academy 
of  Design  in  those  days  and  the  large  dancing- 
class  room  in  a  building  next  to  Grace  Church  was 
the  most  available  gathering-place  for  an  assem- 
blage of  the  kind.  I  remember  the  joyful  excite- 
ment of  the  first  occasion  when  I  met  real  artists 
and  real  poets,  and  I  realize  that  I  was  young  to 
the  world  as  well  as  young  in  years. 

To  see  the  men  whose  verses  had  jingled  in 
my  ears  and  whose  pictures  had  delighted  my 
eyes  was  a  rare  experience.  Morse  was  then  a 
painter  of  portraits,  instead  of  what  he  afterward 
became,  an  opener  of  invisible  doors  that  the 
speech  of  man  might  reach  from  world's  end  to 
world's  end.  I  approved  of  his  looks  as  a  painter 
without  knowing  that  he  was  anything  else, 
and,  indeed,  at  that  time  perhaps  it  was  all 
that  he  knew  of  himself.  Durand,  Cole,  Hunt- 
ingdon, Elliot,  Ingham,  and  Inman  were  of  the 
group. 

These  men  were  the  founders  of  the  Academy  of 
Design  and  the  organizers  of  a  school  of  painting 
in  America;  and  there  were  a  score  of  younger 
89 


YESTERDAYS 

men,  all  of  whom  I  came  to  know  and  who  made 
holiday  house  for  years  of  the  home  we  built  on 
Long  Island  after  our  Brooklyn  days  were  over. 
It  is  still  our  home,  thank  God !  for  perpetuity  in  a 
home  is  a  blanket  for  the  cold  years  which  come 
with  age. 

Among  these  younger  men  who  became  our 
friends  were  F.  E.  Church  ("Free  Episcopal 
Church"  we  called  him),  Sanford  Gifford,  Mc- 
Entee,  Kensett,  Lafarge,  Hubbard,  Boughton, 
Whitridge,  Bierstadt,  George  Innes,  Bristol,  and 
dear  John  Weir,  whose  "Christmas  Bell" — one 
of  the  first  of  Prang's  chromos,  with  its  clustering 
imps  weighing  the  bell-rope — has  hung  for  all  these 
changeable  years  in  my  bedroom.  All  of  these 
men  I  have  seen  grow  into  old,  instead  of  young 
Academicians,  as  they  were  then,  and  all  of  whom, 
alas!  with  one  dear  exception,  I  miss  now  from 
my  dwindled  circle  of  this  world's  acquaintances. 

The  last  time  I  saw  Mr.  Huntingdon  was  at  one 
of  the  Indian  Conferences  at  Lake  Mohonk,  when 
he  sat  in  a  wheeled  chair  and  listened  to  the  talk 
of  the  present  makers  of  public  opinion  and  origi- 
nators of  movements.  He  looked  like  a  very  old 
man  as  he  sat  in  the  slanting  afternoon  light,  with 
a  black-silk  cap  drawn  over  his  head,  and  his 
long  hands,  where  the  veins  emphasized  themselves 
like  rivers  on  a  map,  resting  upon  the  arms  of  the 
chair;  and  yet  those  hands  were  busy  every 
morning  painting  an  important  portrait,  one  of  the 
90 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

last  of  the  ' '  Huntingdons "  which  people  the 
years  present  and  to  come. 

Our  talk  fell  upon  the  painters  whose  life-work 
we  both  followed  and  admired  from  its  beginning 
to  its  end,  "the  Hudson  River  School"  as  it  is 
called;  and  we  both  pleased  ourselves  by  saying 
that  those  men  had  done  certain  things  well,  and 
that,  although  technique  has  altered,  the  merit 
of  their  work  remains  unchanged  and  would  always 
be  a  heritage  of  value  to  the  country. 

In  the  years  of  which  I  am  writing,  Cole  and 
Durand  were  the  leaders  of  the  landscape  school 
of  America.  I  remember  Cole  but  dimly,  although 
I  saw  him  not  infrequently.  I  was  always  con- 
scious of  him  as  a  friend  of  Mr.  Bryant's,  and  the 
painter  of  "Cole's  Voyage  of  Life";  also  of  a 
picture  which  hung  in  the  small  drawing-room 
at  Roslyn  of  himself  and  Bryant  standing  together 
upon  a  rock-ledge  in  the  Catskill  Mountains. 
When  I  came  to  live  in  the  mountains  I  was 
always  recognizing  that  ledge,  whether  my  steps 
led  me  east  or  west,  north  or  south. 

Morse  and  Durand  were  ever-present  figures 
at  all  convocations  of  artists,  both  ardent  work- 
ers for  the  advancement  of  art  and  constant  in- 
fluences in  its  progress.  They  had  both  begun 
their  careers  as  portrait-painters,  but  Durand  soon 
left  that  branch  of  art  for  landscape,  and  it  was 
quite  natural  that  the  younger  painters  who  were 
his  pupils  should  follow  in  the  same  direction. 
91 


YESTERDAYS 

F.  E.  Church,  who  was  one  of  the  leading  men 
of  the  younger  school,  was  a  pupil  of  Cole  and 
follower  of  his  methods,  and  the  growth  of  Amer- 
ican art  was  decidedly  in  the  direction  of  land- 
scape. 

The  influence  of  the  portrait  school  of  England 
dwindled  as  the  younger  painters  came  upon  the 
stage,  although  the  work  of  Huntingdon  had  come 
into  prominence,  accompanied  by  that  of  H. 
Peters  Gray,  H.  A.  Loop,  and  others.  William 
Oliver  Stone,  who  died  too  early  to  finish  his  career, 
and  George  A.  Baker  were  the  "beauty-painters" 
of  the  day,  and  their  portraits  of  the  most  prom- 
inent and  fashionable  and  beautiful  women  were 
the  great  attractions  of  the  yearly  exhibits.  Of 
course,  there  were  others;  Ingham  and  the  elder 
Inman  were  still  upon  the  stage,  although  shoul- 
dered aside  by  the  younger  men. 

The  Peales  and  Sully  were  painting  American 
statesmen  and  American  belles,  and  indeed  the 
great  English  period  of  portrait-painting  was  still 
a  valuable  tradition.  Some  of  the  men  who  had 
studied  under  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough  were 
still  painting — Stuart  himself,  and  one  of  the 
Peales,  and  Sully — and  their  influence  was  felt. 

I  have  a  portrait  which  came  from  the  collec- 
tion of  Burton,  the  comedian;  an  unsigned  picture 
evidently  painted  on  a  canvas  which  had  been 
previously  used,  as  some  of  the  under  painting 
shows  at  the  edges.  When  Burton  died  and  his 
92 


MARRIAGE   AND    BROOKLYN 

collection  was  sold  this  picture  was  bought  by 
Mr.  Thorpe,  who  had  always  singled  it  out  as  a 
thing  of  worth  and  beauty.  Burton  told  Mr. 
Thorpe  that  he  had  brought  it  from  England 
and  that  it  was  the  work  of  an  English  artist 
named  Drummond,  a  pupil  of  Reynolds;  in  spite 
of  which  testimony  all  the  American  painters  I 
have  known  unanimously  declare  it  to  be  a  Sully; 
but  as  Sully  was  also  a  pupil  of  Reynolds  it  only 
goes  to  show  that  the  pupils  of  great  teachers 
are  apt  to  paint  alike;  their  art  handwriting 
resembles  that  of  their  teacher  and  one  another, 
until  wider  experience  and  personal  gifts  affect 
and  shape  it  differently. 

This  particular  picture  is  a  portrait  of  a  young 
girl,  whose  white  veil  is  drawn  across  the  old- 
fashioned,  largely  projecting  bonnet;  the  face 
itself  depicts  girl-beauty  at  its  best.  The  method 
of  its  painting  is  extremely  interesting;  sweeps 
and  curves  of  pure  color,  put  in  with  a  full  brush, 
and  blending  where  they  meet  as  softly  as  shadows 
upon  the  face  of  a  flower.  This  alone  would  make 
it  an  English  picture,  for  none  of  our  early  Amer- 
ican portrait-painters,  save  only  Stuart,  kept  the 
secret  of  handling  pure  color  and  full  brush  which 
made  and  makes  the  lasting  charm  of  the  best 
English  portraits. 

As  I  look  back  to  the  days  of  the  Brooklyn 
home,  I  can  see  that  our  familiarity  with  painters 
themselves,  with  their  studios,  their  work,  and 
93 


YESTERDAYS 

their  talk  of  art,  was  a  constant  education.  Most 
of  them  had  just  returned  from  their  studies 
abroad,  so  art  old  and  new  was  still  an  enthusiasm 
with  them,  and  when  I  came  to  its  study  per- 
sonally I  found  that  the  way  had  been  pre- 
pared by  our  companionship  with  these  pleasant 
friends. 

There  was  at  that  time  little  opportunity  for 
the  exhibition  of  pictures  in  New  York,  there  be- 
ing but  one  or  two  shops  where  they  were  sold. 
In  fact,  I  remember  but  one,  "William's"  on  mid- 
Broadway.  Naturally,  artists'  studios  were  more 
open  to  the  public  then  than  now.  After  the 
building  of  the  "Tenth  Street  Studios"  Saturday 
was  a  general  reception-day,  and  one  could  go 
from  studio  to  studio,  generally  meeting  the  painter 
to  whom  it  belonged  and  having  the  pleasure  of 
hearing  his  own  explanation  of  his  work. 

I  remember  George  Boughton  telling  us  of  the 
visit  of  one  of  the  Stuart  Brothers,  prominent 
sugar-refiners,  who  loved  art  and  allowed  some 
of  their  surplus  wealth  to  find  its  way  into  the 
pockets  of  the  young  painters.  Boughton  related 
that  the  bachelor  brother  came  in  on  several  con- 
secutive Saturdays  to  look  at  a  little  sunset  which 
he  seemed  to  fancy. 

"Where  was  it  painted?"  he  asked. 

It  was  in  truth  a  composition,  but  Boughton 
promptly  answered: 

"  From  Fishkill  Landing." 
94 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

"West  side,"  said  the  patron,  musingly.  "So 
the  sun  sets  in  the  east  there,  does  it?" 

At  that  time  Boughton  was  a  fresh,  boyish- 
looking  man  who  really  belonged  in  Albany  but 
who  had  a  studio  in  the  "Tenth  Street  Studio" 
building.  Then  and  after  his  transplantation  to 
England  he  was  always  a  great  favorite  among 
the  painters.  He  was  chiefly  known  in  his  early 
days  as  a  successful  painter  of  "snow  scenes," 
which  found  favor  with  the  buyers  of  small  pict- 
ures. There  were  not  many  picture-buyers  among 
the  rich,  and,  indeed,  I  think  the  chief  income  of 
the  younger  painters  came  from  the  purchase  of 
small  pictures  by  friends  whose  incomes  had  not 
yet  reached  colossal  proportions.  I  know  we 
bought  them  all  the  way  along  the  "fifties"  and 
"sixties"  and  "seventies"  and  "eighties,"  a  habit 
which  resulted  finally  in  a  complete  collection  of 
the  work  of  early  American  painters,  a  collection 
of  which  my  son,  who  has  fallen  heir  to  them,  is 
justly  proud. 

There  was  another  story  of  the  same  Stuart 
brother  which  Mr.  Palmer  of  Albany  told  with 
glee.  He  had  just  finished  his  statue  of  "The 
Greek  Slave,"  which  was  being  exhibited  in  New 
York,  together  with  other  of  his  productions.  As 
he  was  one  of  the  few  American  sculptors  and 
his  work  was  deservedly  popular,  the  exhibition 
was  a  success.  Among  the  visitors  was  Mr. 
Stuart,  who  wandered  around  among  the  other 
95 


YESTERDAYS 

exhibits,  after  a  long  and  careful  study  of  "The 
Greek  Slave."  In  the  course  of  his  circuit  he  came 
upon  the  sculptor  and,  shaking  hands  delightedly, 
said: 

"Palmer,  I  like  your  'Greek  Slave,'  especially 
the  body.  I  do  not  altogether  care  for  the  head, 
and  I  am  looking  around  to  find  one  that  suits 
me.  If  I  do  I  shall  give  you  an  order." 

There  was  a  sequel  to  this,  which  we  found 
very  amusing.  When  our  daughter,  the  newly 
grown-up  "genteel  baby,"  was  going  to  Paris 
for  a  year's  study,  convoyed  by  Mr.  Wheeler's 
partner  and  his  wife  (who  was  a  sister  of  the 
Stuart  brothers),  we  met  Mr.  Stuart  on  the 
steamer  and  he  was  introduced  to  our  daughter. 
In  the  note  which  came  back  by  the  pilot  was  this 
closing  sentence,  "I  think  Mr.  Stuart  has  found  'a 
head  that  suits  him, '  for  he  kissed  me  at  parting. ' ' 

But  to  go  back  to  the  "Tenth  Street  Studio" 
Saturdays.  It  was  a  day  of  general  visiting  of 
one  another's  studios  by  the  painters  as  well  as 
the  public,  and  on  one  of  the  days  Genoux  ex- 
hibited a  picture  of  Venice,  gay  and  fine  with 
color  and  vivid  with  streaming  flags.  In  F.  E. 
Church's  studio  was  the  result  of  a  summer's 
work  in  South  America  which  he  called  the  "Heart 
of  the  Andes,"  a  large  and  impressive  picture  of 
magnificent  mountain  slopes  covered  with  deeply 
green  semi-tropical  forests.  Meeting  Church  in 
the  hall,  one  of  the  painters  asked : 
96 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

"What  do  you  think  of  Genoux's  'Venice'?" 

"Peppermint  candy,"  he  answered,  shortly. 

Afterward,  strolling  into  Genoux's  studio,  the 
visiting  painter  asked,  "How  do  you  like  the 
'Heart  of  the  Andes'?" 

' '  Spinach !  Spinach ! ' '  said  Genoux.  There  was 
just  enough  real  characterization  of  each  picture 
to  make  this  exchange  of  opinions  very  amusing. 

At  that  time  only  prosperous  and  traveled 
Americans  knew  much  of  foreign  art;  and  they 
were  not  in  the  majority,  and  certainly  not  in 
the  present  sense  "picture-buyers."  So  the  rank 
and  file  of  our  people  had  no  opportunities  of 
seeing  other  than  American  pictures.  I  remember 
when  Turner's  "Slave  Ship"  came  into  this  coun- 
try, having  been  bought  for  Mr.  Lenox  by  a 
friend  whose  knowledge  and  judgment  of  art  he 
relied  upon,  the  public  promptly  decided  that 
he  must  be  greatly  disappointed  in  the  picture, 
and  this  was  probably  the  general  judgment. 
Yet  this  very  picture  was  the  great  attraction 
of  a  gallery  of  selected  foreign  pictures  given  to 
New  York  by  Mr.  Lenox,  a  gift  which  antedated 
the  great  benefactions  of  the  present  day  and  the 
wonderful  riches  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum. 

When  William  P.  Wright,  an  English-American 
merchant  who  made  a  small  art-gallery  in  the  stone 
castle  he  built  at  the  beginning  of  the  Palisades, 
bought  Rosa  Bonheur's  "Horse  Fair"  for  the 
modest  sum  of  six  hundred  dollars,  it  was  ex- 
7  97 


YESTERDAYS 

hibited  at  William's  "Frame  and  Picture  Shop," 
on  Broadway,  and  was  the  art  event  of  the  day. 
Everybody  went  to  see  it  and  the  general  verdict 
was  that  it  was  "understandable,"  a  quality 
which  the  red  flare  of  "The  Slave  Ship"  did  not 
possess  in  the  public  estimation.  What  Turner 
would  have  said  to  this  verdict,  or  what  English 
picture-buyers  and  picture-lovers  would  have 
thought,  is  an  amusing  speculation,  but  that  was 
the  general  American  opinion  of  two  very  famous 
pictures.  And  yet  we  thought  we  knew  what  was 
good  even  in  art.  If  the  test  of  quality  depends 
upon  amount  of  knowledge,  everything  is  good 
to  some  of  us,  and  that  is  a  consoling  reflection. 

The  Brooklyn  period  of  our  lives  was  not  en- 
tirely concerned  with  looking  on  or  getting  to 
know  painters  and  literary  men,  for  music  and 
dramatic  art  had  a  place  in  it.  Music  in  its  simpler 
forms  had  made  up  a  large  part  of  the  joy  of  my 
childhood,  for  it  was  our  only  unquestioned  source 
of  happiness,  the  one  enjoyment  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  Puritan  standard,  was  "without  sin." 

I  learned  to  accept  opera  as  the  highest  ex- 
pression of  music  when  a  wonderful  season  was 
given  at  Castle  Garden,  where  all  the  great  singers 
of  the  time  were  to  be  seen  and  heard  and  where 
Jenny  Lind's  first  concerts  in  America  were  given. 
The  creation  of  a  furor  as  a  means  of  introducing 
any  great  gift  or  accomplishment  to  the  world 
was  comparatively  cheap  and  simple  in  those 
98 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

days,  and  yet  not  perhaps  so  simple  as  it  looks  at 
the  distance  of  sixty  years.  It  was  not  alone  a 
matter  of  calculation  of  cost,  but  of  intuition 
and  judgment,  and  the  original  prophet  of  adver- 
tising, the  man  who  knew  how  to  inoculate  the 
public  with  the  germ  of  curiosity  and  enthusiasm, 
was  in  full  possession  of  his  power. 

P.  T.  Barnum  had  made  himself  known  to  the 
world  before  the  date  of  his  introduction  of  "the 
Swedish  Nightingale"  to  America,  but  it  was  a 
long  step  from  amusing  the  general  and  unschooled 
public  with  unusual  beasts  and  dwarfs  and  painted 
clowns,  to  charming  and  gratifying  the  cultivated 
few  with  one  of  the  world's  miracles  of  singing. 
But  Barnum  did  it!  And  with  a  profit! 

The  attention  of  everybody,  musical  or  other- 
wise, was  called  to  his  experiment  by  the  amount 
it  cost  him — large  then,  but  insignificant  in  our 
present  full  midday  of  costly  advertising.  His 
initial  move  was  to  sell  the  first  ticket  to  the  first 
concert  for  a  hundred  dollars,  and  "Knox  the 
Hatter"  gained  more  by  his  investment  of  the 
hundred  dollars  than  a  million  dollars  spent  in 
advertising  would  accomplish  to-day. 

When  one  man  paid  a  hundred  dollars  to  hear 
the  famous  singer,  thousands  became  eager  to 
pay  a  dollar  for  the  same  privilege,  and  an  audi- 
ence was  secured  which  justified  the  prophet. 

But  the  Nightingale  herself,  the  subject  of  the 
massed  thoughts  and  gathered  attention  of  all 
99 


YESTERDAYS 

comparatively  new  New  York  and  its  various  ex- 
tensions !  I  can  see  her  now  with  her  full-flounced, 
lemon-colored  silk  skirts  and  deep  lace  berthe,  the 
loops  of  fair  hair  over  her  ears,  sloping  outward  in 
graceful  curves,  and  her  movements  as  natural 
and  unconscious  as  those  of  a  child.  The  piano 
was  not  placed  quite  to  her  liking  and  she  in- 
voluntarily attempted  to  move  it,  as  any  house- 
wife would  try  to  push  a  table.  All  this,  I  re- 
member, before  her  notes  began  to  soar  and  float 
in  the  air  spaces  of  the  great  building.  They  were 
not  mere  sounds;  they  were  alive,  like  a  flock  of 
birds  which  she  could  liberate  and  recall  when  and 
where  she  would.  It  was  an  unprecedented  ex- 
perience! We  sat,  my  sister  Lucy  and  I,  hold- 
ing and  pressing  each  other's  hands  and  feeling 
each  other's  thrills  while  the  wonderful  voice 
danced  and  sang  to  an  enthralled  audience.  I 
thought  then,  and  still  think,  her  singing  the 
greatest  union  of  melody  and  art,  of  wonderful 
natural  gift  and  complete  training,  I  have  ever 
known. 

For  the  time,  Castle  Garden  became  a  great 
musical  opportunity.  There  was  one  fifty-cent 
opera  season,  where  the  greatest  singers  of  the 
world,  Sontag,  and  Fosti  the  world-famous  tenor 
among  them,  sang  for  the  million  whose  fifty 
cents  was  the  limit  of  indulgence  for  the  inner 
dweller,  which  so  generally  demands  more  than 
equal  expenditure  with  its  partner,  the  body; 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

and  the  million  went  and  enjoyed  what  was  gen- 
erally the  exclusive  property  of  millionaires.  I 
have  forgotten  many  of  the  names  of  the  great 
singers  we  heard  in  those  inexpensive  days,  but 
their  achievements  became  our  standards,  and 
the  making  of  standards  is,  I  suppose,  the  end 
of  all  cultivation. 

It  was  not  only  music  that  we  heard  in  those 
early  Brooklyn  days.  In  the  very  first  of  them, 
while  I  was  still  young  enough  and  near  enough 
to  Puritan  standards  of  my  childhood  to  feel 
guilty  in  my  very  blood  at  seeing  a  play;  when 
I  was  new  to  Shakespeare  and  had  been  taught 
that  I  periled  my  salvation  by  reading  him,  my 
husband  took  me — not  once  or  twice,  but  many 
times  in  1845 — to  the  old  Park  Theater  to  see 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  Kean  in  "Hamlet,"  and 
other  Shakespeare  plays.  I  was  too  new  to 
dramatic  art  to  think  much  of  Kean's  Hamlet. 
Indeed,  it  has  been  a  drawback  all  my  life  to  a 
cordial  appreciation  of  art  in  various  forms  that 
my  knowledge  of  nature  was  so  comprehensive 
and  minute.  I  have  always  the  perfect  in  my 
mind  to  correct  the  imitative  and  necessarily  in- 
complete. It  has  been  so  with  pictures  when- 
ever they  depended  upon  truthful  representation  of 
natural  effects  for  their  greatness.  It  has  been 
only  when  they  had  to  do  with  human  emotions 
or  moods  of  nature  that  I  could  judge  them  with- 
out comparison  and  by  their  effect  alone.  Dra- 


YESTERDAYS 

matic  art  and  in  a  degree  literary  art  has  always 
had  to  compete  with  that  inner  standard  of  truth 
which  seems  common  to  humanity.  Music  alone 
is  exempt  from  comparison.  Melody  is  only  a 
voicing  of  the  harmonies  which  sing  within  us, 
and  composition,  although  it  may  clothe  itself 
with  melody,  has  no  precedent  in  nature. 

We  were  not  without  "inherited  friends"  in 
those  early  days.  The  first  of  these  to  whom  I 
became  heir  during  the  growing-up  years  of  my 
married  life  were  "the  Coopers,"  Peter  and  Will- 
iam Cooper,  brothers,  who  had  played  with  my 
husband's  father  when  they  were  boys,  roaming 
together  over  the  fields  which  lay  between  lower 
Third  Avenue  and  the  East  River,  and  through 
the  orchards  and  pastures  of  the  Stuyvesant  farm, 
or  exploring  the  wilds  of  the  northern  and  western 
shores  of  New  York  island. 

The  children  of  both  brothers  were  our  friends, 
and  their  children  and  grandchildren  are  still  our 
friends,  and  friends  of  four  generations  are  not  to 
be  lightly  reckoned;  they  are  the  framework  of 
the  house  of  life,  and  wholly  to  be  depended  upon. 
There  are  a  pair  of  pastels  hanging  in  the  Cooper 
Institute,  copied  by  Dora  Wheeler  from  portraits 
of  the  father  and  mother  of  "the  Cooper  boys," 
as  my  husband's  father  called  Peter  and  William 
Cooper,  which  must  have  been  painted  late  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  The  faces  are  characterful 
and  self-denying,  and  it  is  curious  to  trace  back 
102 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

to  these  elements  the  wide-flung  benefits  of  the 
Cooper  Union. 

When  I  first  came  to  know  Peter  Cooper  it  was 
before  the  full  development  of  the  Cooper  Union, 
the  earliest  public  utility  in  New  York  City  de- 
voted to  mental  instead  of  physical  needs.  But 
he  was  even  then  a  man  of  mark  and  of  means, 
and  endowed  with  much  practical  wisdom  and 
general  beneficence.  He  possessed  also  extraor- 
dinary mechanical  ability.  He  could  do  wonder- 
ful things  with  the  concert  of  mind  and  hands, 
and  I  remember  his  telling  me  of  his  construction 
of  a  locomotive  engine  which  antedated  the  first 
Fulton  locomotive,  and  just  escaped,  through 
accident  of  time,  taking  its  place  as  a  new  inven- 
tion. He  had  a  perfectly  equipped  machine-shop 
over  the  carriage-house  of  his  home  on  Lexington 
Avenue,  and  one  of  his  first  gifts  to  his  grandsons, 
Mrs.  Hewitt's  boys,  was  a  turning-lathe,  which 
he  taught  them  to  use  at  the  age  when  other 
boys  were  playing  marbles.  The  strain  of  en- 
gineering intelligence  trickled  through  his  daugh- 
ter's brain  and  made  mechanical  geniuses  of  her 
sons,  one  of  whom,  Peter  Cooper  Hewitt,  is  reck- 
oned among  the  prominent  inventors  of  the  world, 
while  our  faithful  friend,  Edward  Ringwood  Hew- 
itt, the  second  son,  creates  every  day  miracles  in 
the  way  of  farm  machines  upon  his  great  space 
of  acres  near  Tuxedo. 

I  remember  sitting  next  Mr.  Cooper  at  dinner 
103 


YESTERDAYS 

at  Mrs.  Hewitt's  house  at  Ringwood,  where  the 
number  of  guests  made  quiet  conversation  be- 
tween any  two  possible  and  pleasant,  and  en- 
ticing him  into  telling  me  of  his  first  thought  of 
founding  a  great  institute  for  the  sons  of  work- 
ing-men. 

"It  began,"  said  he,  "when  I  was  quite  a 
young  man  and  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Alder- 
men— it  was  respectable  in  those  days  to  be  an 
alderman,"  he  interpolated — "and  at  one  of  our 
sittings  I  asked  a  man  I  knew  about  his  family, 
and  he  told  me  his  oldest  son  was  in  Paris, 
studying  architecture.  It  seemed  to  me  a  long 
way  to  send  a  boy  to  school,  and  I  said  so, 
but  he  told  me  that  in  Paris  there  was  the 
best  of  free  education  to  be  had  in  a  great 
institute  founded  and  supported  by  the  French 
government.  I  asked  about  it,  for  I  was  in- 
terested in  such  things,  and  I  kept  on  asking  until 
I  knew  all  he  could  tell  me.  At  the  end  of 
our  conversation  I  made  up  my  mind  that  if  our 
government  could  do  no  better  than  to  give  a 
poor  boy  a  common-school  education,  something 
ought  to  be  done  about  it,  and  I  promised  myself 
that  when  I  was  worth  sixty  thousand  dollars 
I  would  start  an  institute  for  working-men's 
sons." 

"And  did  you?"  I  asked,  for  sixty  thousand 
dollars  had  grown  to  be  a  comparatively  insig- 
nificant sum  even  then. 

104 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

Mr.  Cooper  laughed.  "No,"  said  he,  "but  I 
got  the  land. 

"You  remember,"  he  continued,  "that  old 
wedge  where  Third  Avenue  forks  and  joins  Fourth 
Avenue  and  becomes  the  Bowery.  It  was  cov- 
ered with  hencoops  and  filled  with  market- 
wagons,  for  it  was  opposite  the  little  Third 
Avenue  Market." 

I  did  remember  it,  and  Mr.  Cooper  went  on  to 
tell  of  his  favorable  purchase  of  the  site,  and  how, 
during  the  years  that  his  fortune  was  growing, 
he  was  studying  institutes ;  and  then  of  the  actual 
organization  and  contracts  and  building,  and  of 
its  being  a  "Boy's  Institute"  until  he  took  over 
an  art-school,  founded  by  philanthropic  New  York 
women,  agreeing  that  it  should  not  lose  its  iden- 
tity, but  should  always  be  called  "The  Woman's 
Art  School." 

Of  course  the  enterprise  met  with  scant  en- 
couragement at  first,  but  Mr.  Cooper's  son,  Ed- 
ward Cooper,  and  his  son-in-law,  Abram  S.  Hewitt, 
joined  hands  with  him  in  its  prosecution,  and  it 
became,  instead  of  a  one-man  enterprise,  the 
affair  of  a  powerful  family,  that  of  his  brother, 
William  Cooper,  adding  generously  to  its  resources. 

At  the  time  of  this  artless  recital,  the  Cooper 
Union  had  become  a  great  public  benefit,  its  ad- 
vantages known  and  used  by  thousands  of  young 
people  to  whom  scientific  and  art  knowledge 
would  otherwise  have  been  impossible;  among 


YESTERDAYS 

them,  I  may  name  Saint-Gaudens,  perhaps  our 
greatest  sculptor  and  whose  first  art  instruction 
was  at  "The  Cooper."  Realizing  its  scope  and 
importance,  I  looked  at  the  dear  gray  prophet 
at  my  side,  and  was  newly  struck  with  wonder  at 
the  living  progress  of  an  idea.  I  could  fancy  this 
man,  many  years  younger,  sitting  beside  his 
brother  alderman,  simply  a  quiet,  honest,  unob- 
trusive citizen,  nursing  a  thought  which  would 
grow  into  a  great  power. 

It  was  the  same  seed  that  wise  old  Benjamin 
Franklin  sowed  when  he  left  ten  thousand  dollars 
in  trust  to  the  city  of  Boston  to  be  kept  at  com- 
pound interest  for  a  century,  to  found  a  "Work- 
ingman's  Institute,"  when  the  hundred  years 
should  have  gone.  The  ten  thousand  dollars 
slept  underground,  spreading  its  roots  in  com- 
pound interest  until  the  years  were  complete. 
When  it  had  reached  the  sum  of  three  hundred 
thousand  dollars  the  trustees  of  the  bequest  came 
to  New  York  to  look  into  the  organization  of  the 
Cooper  Union,  and  one  of  the  Cooper  trustees 
was  so  interested  by  the  sudden  appearance  above- 
ground  of  Franklin's  thought  that  he  impulsively 
grafted  another  hundred  thousand  dollars  into  the 
original  stock,  with  secret  delight  at  its  com- 
panionship. Perhaps  at  this  date  it  is  not  in- 
discreet to  say  that  the  trustee  was  Andrew 
Carnegie. 

What  blessed  things  are  thoughts,  when  they 
106 


MARRIAGE    AND    BROOKLYN 

are  of  such  strain !    And  what  a  royal  lot  to  have 
been  the  ground  for  one  to  grow  in ! 

Dear  old  Peter  Cooper!  The  later  years  of  his 
life,  when  "Matthew"  drove  him  daily  in  his 
queer  old  high  open  phaeton  down  to  the  Cooper 
Union  to  smile  around  the  building,  to  stroll 
through  its  wide  halls  and  into  its  great  recitation- 
rooms  and  to  exchange  questions  and  answers 
with  its  tutors,  and  receive  hundreds  of  grateful 
glances  from  young  eyes  which  he  had  helped 
toward  shedding  light  upon  the  world,  must  have 
been  full  of  happiness  and  satisfaction.  Indeed, 
I  know  they  were.  I  considered  it  one  of  my 
choicest  honors  to  have  been  during  my  working 
years  one  of  the  advisory  committee  of  "The 
Woman's  Art  School  of  the  Cooper  Union." 

Peter  Cooper  had  two  children,  a  son,  and  a 
daughter  who  married  Abram  S.  Hewitt.  During 
the  latter  part  of  his  life  his  simple  goodness  and 
one-thoughted  benevolence  was  somewhat  over- 
shadowed by  the  prominent  public  life  of  his  son- 
in-law,  although  he  lived  quietly  and  happily  in 
the  shadow;  neither  he  nor  his  family  realized 
the  importance  of  what  he  had  done  in  his  life, 
until  his  death,  when  a  walking  procession  of 
appreciative  working-men,  reaching  from  his 
home  at  Twenty-second  Street  to  the  far-distant 
Battery,  followed  his  untenanted  body  toward  his 
last  resting-place. 

Mr.  Edward  Hewitt  writes  me: 
107 


YESTERDAYS 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  WHEELER: 

I  am  glad  you  are  writing  about  Grandfather.  Those  who 
knew  him  well  are  getting  very  scarce  now.  I  believe  I  can 
find  a  photograph  of  him,  I  made  myself,  which  is  very  good, 
though  small.  Mrs.  Bryce  will  have  good  ones  of  Uncle 
Edward.  I  have  a  book  showing  a  copy  of  the  race  between 
the  locomotive  and  the  horse-car  which  you  could  copy. 
I  also  have  his  speech  at  the  Arcadian  Club. 


IV 

"NESTLEDOWN" 

WHEN  I  began  to  count  my  years  into  the 
twenties  we  left  our  Brooklyn  days  and 
Brooklyn  home  behind  us  and  built  a  new  abiding- 
place,  one  quite  to  our  minds,  twelve  miles  out  on 
Long  Island. 

How  much  of  the  course  of  life  is  accidental! 
It  is  as  if  one  started  for  a  country  drive  and 
turned  hither  and  thither  almost  at  the  will  of 
the  animal  drawing  the  vehicle,  following  the 
road  with  its  changes  without  knowledge  or  pur- 
pose or  even  will  of  one's  own;  and  yet  the  road 
with  its  incidents  is  life.  Our  dream  had  always 
been  that  when  we  grew  rich  we  should  build  a 
house  upon  the  shores  of  the  Hudson,  perhaps  in 
the  beautiful  neighborhood  of  Tarry  town,  where 
we  could  go  every  Sunday  to  the  little  church  at 
Spuyten  Duyvel,  and  put  our  small  contribution 
in  the  plate  passed  for  collection  by  Washing- 
ton Irving. 

In  spite  of  this  fancy,  we  built  our  family  shelter 
and  made  our  home  on  the  flats  of  Long  Island, 
109 


YESTERDAYS 

among  the  descendants  of  the  old  Dutch  farmers, 
who  recognized  us  for  forty  years  only  as  "those 
new  people." 

It  happened  in  this  wise.  A  man  came  into  the 
office  one  day,  who  lived  "out  on  the  Island,"  and 
asked  my  husband  to  bring  me  out  for  the  night 
to  his  place,  a  modest  cottage  with  many  acres  of 
land,  lying  midway  between  the  north  and  south 
shores  of  Long  Island.  The  pleasant  countriness 
of  it,  and  the  homeiness  of  it,  resulted  in  our  buy- 
ing a  gently  sloping  meadow,  which  ran  back 
into  acres  of  woodland  and  to  the  shore  of  the 
"Two-Mile  Mill-pond"  where  great  white  water- 
lilies  grew. 

Our  active-minded,  nimble-legged  boy  had  much 
to  do  with  this  purchase,  although  he  was  not 
consulted,  and  a  pair  of  Morgan  mares,  bred  and 
for  sale  by  our  many-acred  friend,  decided  it, 
without  uttering  a  word  of  either  horse  or  man 
language.  Upon  this  ground  we  built  a  house,  as 
closely  fashioned  to  our  minds  as  the  changing 
thoughts  which  shaped  them  allowed,  and  we 
called  it  "Nestledown,"  for  that  name  seemed  to 
hold  happy  domestic  possibilities.  So  the  place 
grew  which  was  the  warp  and  woof  on  which  most 
of  the  happenings  of  our  after-lives  were  figured. 

The  neighborhood  was  called  Jamaica,  for  that 
was  the  nearest  town,  then  a  small  old  Dutch 
village,  of  some  importance  withal,  because  of  its 
age  and  traditions.  It  had  been  the  summer 


"NESTLEDOWN" 

"seat"  of  some  of  the  governing  powers  of  New 
Amsterdam,  and  still  bore  an  unmistakable  stamp' 
of  its  origin  in  the  occasional  Dutch  farm-houses 
along  the  central  street  which  led  far  down  the 
length  of  the  Island.  Beyond  the  town  limits, 
this  street  became  a  road  threading  through  prim- 
itive villages  and  running  parallel  to  the  one  rail- 
road; it  was  also  the  scene  of  notable  activity  in 
horse-trotting.  Indeed,  all  the  "trotters"  of 
sporting  New  York  were  as  familiar  with  it  as 
we  who  lived  within  sound  of  the  flying  hoofs. 
In  an  old  copy  of  the  village  by-laws,  it  is  com- 
manded that  "no  person  shall  shoot  eagles  on 
the  highway."  Sixty  years  ago  it  seemed  quite 
possible  to  break  this  law. 

When  the  transit  from  city  to  country  was 
really  made,  and  our  household  gods  distributed 
and  set  up  in  our  new  home,  the  madness  of 
planting  took  possession  of  me.  One  of  the 
Morgan  mares  was  gentle  enough  for  a  woman 
to  drive,  so  I  made  almost  daily  trips  across  the 
Island  to  Flushing,  where  the  first  nurseries  of 
New  York  still  exist,  hurrying  the  speedy  mare 
along  the  smooth  road,  in  spite  of  my  Quaker 
bonnet,  and  bringing  back  in  my  small  vehicle 
the  little  beginnings  of  the  great  trees  which  now 
distinguish  and  shadow  the  broad  lawn  of  ' '  Nestle- 
down,"  stretching  their  arms  in  air  and  cutting 
the  sky  into  patches  of  blue  rimmed  with  flut- 
tering leaves.  Now  their  trunks  are  gigantic  pil- 


YESTERDAYS 

lars,  gray  and  fluted  and  beautiful.  And  they  are 
still  waxing,  God  be  thanked,  after  the  manner 
of  tree  life,  although  the  human  life  which  planted 
them  wanes. 

Oh !  but  those  were  good  days !  Days  when  life 
was  rushing  so  vigorously  through  our  veins,  and 
my  husband  was  busy  and  happy  making  money 
"in  town,"  and  the  children  were  growing  up, 
and  I  was.  planting.  I  felt  then,  as  I  know  now, 
that  one  of  the  most  perfect  and  unfailing  joys 
of  life  is  planting.  It  is  the  creative  joy  felt  by 
God — "when  He  saw  all  that  He  had  made,  He 
called  it  good." 

Our  Brooklyn  and  New  York  friends  loved 
"Nestledown,"  and  found  ease  and  joy  in  it. 
The  men  of  the  "Tenth  Street  Studios"  drifted 
out  on  Sundays  and  holidays,  and  shared  our 
breadth  of  air  and  space,  and  ate  of  our  fresh 
young  garden  growths,  our  apples  and  pears  and 
grapes  and  other  kindly  fruits  of  the  earth,  or  drove 
with  us  to  Rockaway  and  ate  our  picnic  luncheon 
on  the  Beach.  They  were  all  so  welcome! 

I  remember  Eastman  Johnson  in  his  bachelor 
days  staying  with  us  while  he  painted  a  picture 
which  he  saw  on  one  of  our  drives.  On  the  Black 
Stump  Road,  which  ran  across  from  Jamaica  to 
Flushing,  there  stood  the  ruins  of  a  house  which 
had  been  built  in  the  old  slave  days  for  negro 
quarters.  There  were  just  four  stone  walls  and 
a  chimney,  and  Eastman  was  struck  with  the 


"NESTLEDOWN" 

pictorial  effect  of  the  flare  of  light  down  the  big- 
throated  chimney.  So  he  stayed  and  painted  it 
— not  a  sketch,  but  a  painstaking  Dusseldorf  pict- 
ure, with  an  old  darky,  whom  he  picked  up  on 
the  neighboring  farm,  sitting  bowed  over  embers  in 
the  failing  light.  He  drove  my  gray  mare  Bessie, 
who  was  a  delightful  companion,  across  to  the 
old  house  every  morning,  taking  his  lunch  with 
him  and  picketing  Bessie  in  the  field  until  night. 

Sandford  Gifford  made  little  sketches  of  the 
sunsets  which  afterward  flamed  into  glory  on  his 
canvases.  Bierstadt  got  up  early  one  morning  to 
paint  a  sunset  of  the  night  before  which  still 
flamed  in  his  memory. 

George  Hall  showed  me  how  to  mix  and  use 
colors  and  glazes,  and  superintended  my  first 
effort  in  oil-painting;  indeed,  I  got  great  help 
from  all  these  friendly  artists,  and  as  I  had  always 
drawn  flowers  enthusiastically  and  successfully, 
and  loved  the  intricacies  and  mystery  of  color, 
I  found  myself  before  long  an  amateur  flower- 
painter,  with  pictures  accepted  and  even  sold  at 
the  Academy  exhibitions. 

Mr.  Whitridge  was  also  one  of  the  bachelor 
painters  who  came  to  our  "Nestledown,"  and  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  McEntee,  both  of  whom  we  loved,  each 
for  the  sake  of  the  other;  and,  oh!  there  were  so 
many  friends  and  friends.  There  was  the  quiet, 
gentlemanly  Hubbard,  who,  like  his  work,  carried 
a  smack  of  superiority  and  almost  aloofness;  also 
8  113 


YESTERDAYS 

the  two  Thompsons,  Jerome  and  Cephas,  and 
Abbey  and  Hart.  Then  there  was  Inness,  since 
so  famous,  at  that  time  a  shy  young  artist  and 
occasionally  attracted  to  "  Nestledown,"  not  by  its 
own  claims,  but  because  it  housed  as  a  frequent 
visitor  the  most  beautiful  of  beautiful  girls — 
"Little  Lizzie  Hart,"  we  called  her,  a  child  of 
seventeen  with  a  face  like  a  dream  of  heaven. 
We  were  all  enamoured  of  her,  but  with  Inness  the 
emotion  rose  to  the  superlative  degree.  He  was 
not  our  special  friend,  as  were  the  others;  he  was 
"Lizzie's  lover"  and  had  no  room  in  his  heart  for 
anything  but  that  and  his  passion  for  art.  These 
two  forces  well-nigh  destroyed  the  frail  organism 
which  held  them,  for  the  uncertainty  of  both 
plunged  him  into  a  long  and  almost  fatal  illness. 
But  perhaps  this  untoward  experience  accom- 
plished the  hitherto  unattainable — it  gained  for 
him  the  pity  and  love  of  the  human  vision  he 
worshiped,  and  ended  in  his  marriage  and  a  long 
loiter  of  study  in  Paris  where  he  realized  his  dream 
of  art.  Happy  man!  It  is  given  to  but  few  of  the 
world's  children  to  accomplish  so  much.  As  I  am 
writing  there  comes  to  me  by  mail  a  small  pamphlet 
published  in  the  interest  of  an  "Inness  Collec- 
tion," which  gives  a  marvelous  history  of  the 
success  of  his  pictures.  But  notwithstanding  this, 
and  my  enjoyment  'of  his  work  through  an  art- 
long  life,  the  most  vital  of  my  impressions  of  him 
is  that  of  "Lizzie's  lover." 
114 


"NESTLEDOWN" 

Launt  Thompson,  one  of  our  earliest  sculptors 
and  whose  noble  head  of  Bryant  enriches  Central 
Park,  did  charming  medallions  of  our  friends, 
Sandford  Gifford  and  Jervis  McEntee,  copies  of 
which  are  still  hanging  in  the  hall  which  they 
have  adorned  for  fifty  years.  A  bust  of  Gifford 
looks  down  from  the  bookcase  and  we  have  many 
reminders  of  those  men  and  days  in  the  pictures 
with  which  the  walls  are  covered. 

Launt  Thompson  was  a  pupil  of  Mr.  Palmer  of 
Albany,  and  a  man  of  ability.  His  large  first- 
floor  studio  at  Tenth  Street,  afterward  and  for 
many  years  the  studio  of  William  M.  Chase,  was 
a  place  of  great  interest  even  when  it  held  only 
the  work  of  his  hands,  but  it  was  often  full  of 
living  interest.  I  can  never  forget  one  New  Year's 
Eve  when  we  met  there  at  one  of  his  suppers,  and 
Edwin  Booth  was  a  guest  and  occupied  the  head 
of  the  table.  As  he  sat  there  quietly  amid  all  the 
chatter,  Launt  placed  an  Indian  war-bonnet, 
which  Bierstadt  had  brought  back  from  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  upon  Booth's  head.  I  had  a 
fancy  that  Booth  did  not  like  it,  but  his  beautiful 
face  was  always  as  impassive  as  a  mask;  and 
of  course  he  could  hardly  imagine  the  wonderful 
picture  he  made  in  the  eagle-feather  coronet. 
When  midnight  came,  he  read  to  us  Tennyson's 
poem  of  "The  New  Year."  There  was  something 
in  the  hour,  in  the  place,  in  the  group  of  sensitive 
and  appreciative  people,  and  in  the  wonderful 
"5 


YESTERDAYS 

gift  of  utterance  of  the  man  who  read  which  im- 
pressed us  all  as  if  we  were  a  convocation  of 
souls  instead  of  bodies.  Tennyson  himself  seemed 
present,  and  the  vision  was  ours  as  well  as  his. 
We  held  our  breath  for  the  entering  of  the  one 
who  "waited  at  the  door." 

Our  acquaintances  and  intimacies  during  the 
first  fifteen  years  of  our  lives  at  "Nestledown"  were 
not  confined  to  people,  but  extended  to  animals. 
Having  grown  up  in  Delaware  County,  which 
was  principally  inhabited  by  cows,  great  herds 
with  their  appointed  sultans  on  every  dairy-farm, 
my  intimacies  with  domestic  animals  were  chiefly 
confined  to  that  race;  but,  my  husband  being  a 
horse-lover  and  a  dog-lover,  it  followed  that 
horses  of  all  kinds  and  dogs  of  all  breeds  gravitated 
to  "  Nestledown."  There  was  the  pair  of  Morgan 
mares — trotters  (for  it  was  the  day  of  trotters 
on  Long  Island) — and  a  tall  black  pair  of  carriage- 
horses,  kept  chiefly  to  protect  the  Morgans  from 
the  degradation  of  ordinary  sane  traveling,  and 
Bessie,  a  pretty  gray  mare  who  had  been  bought 
as  a  prospective  prodigy  of  speed,  but  who  had 
been  turned  down  by  the  master  because  some- 
body else's  trotter  persistently  passed  her  on  the 
road.  It  was,  however,  a  morning  full  of  joyous 
thrills  when  he  returned  from  a  "spin"  in  a  dis- 
couraged mood  and  said:  "I  can  never  make  a 
good  trotter  of  that  mare,  and  if  you  can  change  her 
gait  into  that  of  a  saddle-horse,  you  may  have  her." 
116 


"NESTLEDOWN" 

Of  course  I  knew  it  would  be  difficult  to  teach 
an  entirely  new  code  of  morals,  for  she  had  been 
painfully  taught  from  youth  up  that  to  break  a 
trot  was  the  unforgivable  sin;  but  I  loved  the 
beauty  and  hankered  after  undisputed  possession. 
So  after  the  master  had  gone  to  town  I  had  Mike 
put  on  my  saddle,  with  a  table-cloth  streaming 
from  under  it  to  simulate  the  flapping  of  my  long 
riding-skirt;  then  Bessie  was  badgered  up  and 
down  the  carriage  road,  to  see  how  she  would 
behave  under  this  equipment.  Of  course  she  was 
bewildered  with  the  unusual  trappings,  but  she 
possessed  that  most  valuable  quality  in  a  horse, 
perfect  confidence  in  humanity.  Although  she 
could  not  imagine  what  it  meant,  and  looked 
around  curiously  at  the  flapping  of  the  table- 
cloth, she  was  calm  and  quite  willing  to  let  me 
climb  to  her  back,  knowing  and  believing  in  me 
as  she  did ;  so  we  started  out  on  the  road  together, 
walking  quietly.  Whenever  she  broke  into  a  trot, 
which  she  supposed  was  the  correct  thing  to  do,  she 
was  speedily  soothed  down  into  a  walk  again.  By 
the  time  she  had  become  used  to  the  combination 
of  a  tightly  girthed  saddle  and  a  woman's  skirt 
we  had  come  to  the  little  hill  I  was  looking  for; 
then  by  an  unexpected  stroke  of  the  whip  and  a 
lift  of  the  bridle  I  started  her  into  a  run.  Poor 
Bessie!  She  tried  to  wriggle  down  into  a  trot, 
but  whenever  she  did  so  the  bridle-lift  and  stroke 
of  switch  were  repeated,  and  her  jumps  approved 
117 


YESTERDAYS 

with  soothing  pats.  It  was  a  wonderful  thought 
when  it  occurred  to  her  that  jumping  and  running 
was  what  was  wanted,  so  we  jumped  and  ran  until 
the  runs  moderated  into  a  gallop,  and  suddenly 
Bessie  knew  her  business.  After  an  hour's  com- 
panionship and  quiet  talk  over  it,  we  went  home 
on  a  reasonably  slow  gallop,  and  were  received 
by  Mike  with  voluble  praise. 

In  the  afternoon  the  lesson  was  repeated.  We 
walked  quietly  along  the  road  until  we  came  to 
the  little  hill,  and  here,  to  my  joy  and  without 
a  word  from  me,  Bessie  broke  into  a  long  gallop. 
We  talked  over  the  experience,  and  I  told  her  the 
name  of  her  new  gait  and  repeated  it  until  she 
knew  it  by  heart  and  understood  that  it  belonged 
to  a  simultaneous  and  progressive  movement  of 
two  feet,  front  and  back;  consequently  her  vocabu- 
lary was  enlarged  by  another  word  of  human 
speech,  and  whenever  I  said  "canter!"  she  can- 
tered. Afterward  she  learned  PACE!  in  capital 
letters,  and  "walk!"  but  she  never  again  heard 
the  word  "trot "  in  tones  of  command  to  her  dying 
day;  and  yet  when  she  was  harnessed  to  a  buggy 
and  Mike  drove  me  to  the  station  we  need  not 
take  the  dust  of  any  ordinary  trotter.  He  always 
entreated  me  at  starting : 

"Don't  ye  spake,  for  the  love  of  Hiven,  Mrs. 
Wha-ler,  for  if  she  knows  you're  behind  her  I  shall 
niver  get  her  off  a  walk  or  a  canter,  and  we'll 
lose  the  train." 

118 


"NESTLEDOWN" 

Another  of  the  stable  companions  was  Musty, 
an  abbreviation  of  Mustang,  a  half-savage  little 
beast  brought  North  by  General  Worth  after  the 
Mexican  War,  so  he  was  more  than  young  when 
he  came  to  us,  but  he  had  the  intelligence  of  a 
dozen  larger  horses.  This  experienced  animal  was 
the  special  property  of  the  "genteel  baby,"  grown 
now  to  ten-year  stature  and  attractiveness,  and 
endowed  with  a  gift  of  understanding  dumb  exist- 
ence which  was  almost  uncanny.  What  could  she 
not  do  with  wicked  Musty,  whose  long  teeth  and 
nimble  heels  were  the  terror  of  the  stable!  One 
of  the  prettiest  things  in  the  world  was  to  see 
her  ride  off  of  a  morning  with  him  and  two  white 
fantail  pigeons  for  company.  The  birds  would 
start  out  a  moment  or  two  after  she  had  gone, 
fly  until  they  came  abreast,  and  light  on  the  road 
fence  or  a  branch  of  the  cedar  hedge  until  she 
had  passed;  then  rise  for  another  flight,  and  stop 
again  when  Musty  and  the  child  arrived.  I  have 
never  seen  elsewhere  so  perfect  a  playmate  rela- 
tion between  animals  and  a  human  child,  but  it 
was  the  wonder  nature  of  her  which  brought 
squealing,  runaway  Musty  to  perfect  service  and 
the  shy,  high-flying  pigeons  to  follow  her.  The 
pony  would  carry  the  child  far  and  wide  among 
the  Long  Island  farms,  as  well  as  on  innumerable 
trips  "to  the  village,"  where  he  knew  every  shop 
and  could  open  every  door  if  it  were  closed  with 
a  latch,  seizing  and  lifting  the  latter  with  his  long 
119 


YESTERDAYS 

front  teeth  and  waiting  quietly  at  the  counter  while 
his  rider  made  her  purchases  from  his  back.  After 
coming  home,  if  she  neglected  to  take  off  his 
bridle,  he  would  look  for  a  nail  or  a  branch  upon 
which  he  could  hitch  the  check-strap  and  slip 
his  head  from,  under;  then,  dropping  the  bit, 
he  would  go  peacefully  grazing,  with  the  dangling 
bridle  hanging  to  his  neck.  If  he  were  called, 
he  would  come  and  open  his  mouth  for  the  bit, 
bending  his  neck  for  the  bridle  and  behaving  alto- 
gether "like  a  Christian,"  as  Mike  said. 

How  well  I  remember  the  misty  September  and 
October  mornings  when  we  were  all  out  together, 
my  dear  man  on  one  of  the  Morgans  with  its 
long  swinging  trot,  I  on  my  reformed  gray  Bessie 
with  her  mind  full  of  a  desire  to  please,  and  the 
child,  who  rode  her  shaggy  Musty  as  a  bird 
might  perch  upon  the  saddle,  as  untroubled 
by  his  wild  rushes  as  if  she  possessed  a  pair 
of  wings. 

Afterward,  when  she  was  a  dear,  beautiful 
"just  grown-up"  and  with  us  for  a  winter  at 
Rome,  her  riding  with  the  Hunt  Club  on  the 
Campagna  had  just  this  spontaneous  quality.  I 
remember  Charlotte  Cushman  stopping  her  horse 
beside  our  carriage,  after  the  run  was  over,  and 
comparing  her  easy  sway  and  flying  fashion  of 
riding  with  the  perpendicular  steadiness  of  the 
English  school.  She  called  it ' '  the  American  way, ' ' 
but  we  knew  it  was  Musty's  work,  poor  old 


"NESTLEDOWN" 

Musty,  who  lay  moldering  in  the  ground  at  far- 
off  "  Nestledown." 

Sometimes  our  morning  rides  at  "Nestledown" 
would  be  varied  by  my  husband's  chronic  dis- 
content with  the  legs  of  his  trousers,  which  would 
"hitch  up";  and  this  most  able  of  horsemen, 
who  liked  to  tell  of  his  hundred-miles-a-day  rides 
to  rejoin  his  surveying  company  when  he  was 
helping  to  lay  out  roads  and  canals  in  what  were 
then  the  Western  and  now  the  Middle  States, 
would  fidget  over  this  inconvenience  like  a  child. 
Then  I,  seeing  that  this  petulance  was  spoiling  a 
rose  of  a  September  morning,  would  remonstrate, 
and  he  would  meet  it  with,  "But  you  are  always 
in  such  a  devil  of  a  hurry  that  I  never  have  time 
to  find  the  right  suit."  But  presently  I  would 
laugh,  and  Bessie  shy  at  a  dog  which  jumped 
suddenly  out  from  a  farm-house  gate  and  gallop 
off;  the  Morgan  mare  would  strike  into  her  long 
trotting  reach,  the  little  Musty  would  rush  by 
us  like  the  wind,  and  we  would  "whoa"  together, 
and  laugh  together,  and  come  down  to  a  decent 
gait  as  we  rounded  "Success  Pond"  and  so  home. 

Yes,  that  was  all  real,  although  it  seems  like  a 
dream  now.  Dear  old  "  Nestledown,"  to  have  held 
all  this  beautiful  past!  Even  if  worry  and  fret 
and  care  did  exist  also.  But  there  were  not  so 
many  cares  and  worries,  and  whatever  came,  there 
was  always  the  "earth-cure"  for  them. 

When  I  was  a  child  and  suffered  from  a  bee  or 


YESTERDAYS 

hornet  sting,  my  mother  used  to  cover  the  hurt 
spot  with  a  little  plaster  of  clay,  and  lo !  the  smart 
was  gone.  And  in  a  larger  way  I  have  found  that 
if  we  come  close  to  the  ground,  real  worries  dis- 
appear. Dear  inanimate  nature!  Is  it  because 
you  are  truly  "Mother  Earth"  that  we  find  joy 
and  rest  on  your  bosom? 

It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  us  that  our  Long 
Island  home  was  within  easy  driving  distance  of 
the  Bryant  homestead  at  Roslyn  on  the  Sound, 
and  as  it  was  a  lovely  drive  across  the  Island  from 
one  house  to  the  other,  the  interchange  of  visits 
was  more  than  occasional.  We  went  through 
lane-like  roads  bordered  with  hedges  of  lopped 
cedars,  past  fertile  farms,  and  farm-houses  where, 
through  the  open  door,  we  could  see  families  at 
tea  in  the  early  hours  of  the  afternoon.  We  used 
to  wonder  what  was  on  the  table,  and  guess  what 
it  might  be.  My  favorite  guess  was  "hot  biscuit 
and  strawberries  and  cream,"  for  that  was  what 
I  should  have  liked  myself;  my  husband's  guess 
was  "chicken  and  green  peas,"  and  the  child  on 
Musty  would  offer  to  go  and  see,  but  her  guess 
was  "custard  and  three  kinds  of  cake." 

Sometimes  we  made  the  way  longer  by  driving 
around  Success  Pond — the  beautiful  little  lake 
which  is  now  a  part  of  the  Vanderbilt  Long  Island 
estate — finally  coming  out  into  the  breath  of  the 
Sound  and  the  crooked,  narrow  street  of  Roslyn, 
and  so  on  to  the  Bryant  homestead,  standing 


WILLIAM   CULLEN   BRYANT 

From  the  bust  by  Launt  Thompson,  Sculptor 


"NESTLEDOWN" 

crossways  between  the  road  and  an  inlet  of  the 
Sound. 

If  it  were  late  enough  for  the  afternoon  train 
or  the  afternoon  boat  to  have  come  in,  Mr. 
Bryant  was  apt  to  be  sitting  in  the  shade  of  the 
piazza;  if  he  were  ever  in  the  mood  for  talk  it 
was  then,  when  his  day's  work  at  the  head  of  a 
great  newspaper  was  done,  the  quiet  country 
which  he  loved  gained  in  exchange  for  the  crowded 
city,  with  home  ease  and  a  night  empty  of  all  but 
sleep  and  dreams  before  him. 

In  such  hours  he  would  talk,  and  his  opinions 
so  quietly  given  were  of  a  finality  which  seemed 
to  need  no  discussion.  Regarding  the  political 
matters  of  the  day,  his  judgment  of  them  seemed 
to  be  founded  on  the  great  fundamental  laws 
which  lie  back  of  mere  happenings.  The  matter, 
whatever  it  might  be,  was  suddenly  stripped  of 
everything  extraneous  or  politic  or  even  compli- 
cated, and  the  truth  and  right  shone  steadfast  as 
an  uncovered  gem. 

In  the  house  at  Roslyn  Mr.  Bryant's  library 
opened  on  the  wide  lower  hall,  and  was,  of  course, 
lined  with  well-filled  book-shelves  and  made  com- 
fortable and  beautiful  with  old-fashioned  fur- 
niture and  a  great  Franklin  stove.  Indeed, 
Franklin  stoves  counted  for  much  in  the  poet's 
house,  for  the  three  rooms  on  the  first  floor — 
parlor,  library,  and  dining  -  room — were  each 
equipped  with  one  of  the  oldest  patterns  and 
123 


YESTERDAYS 

largest  size;  and  their  manufacture  must  have 
been  very  near  the  date  of  wise  old  Benjamin 
Franklin's  invention  of  this  beautiful  improvement 
upon  the  draughty  wide  fireplaces  of  his  day. 

It  was  only  an  occasional  visitor  who  was  asked 
into  the  library  for  the  evening,  but  I  remember 
some  notable  guests.  One  Saturday  evening  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Justin  McCarthy  appeared  for  what  Miss 
Bryant  supposed  to  be  an  over-Sunday  visit,  and 
I  recall  her  confusion  when  Mrs.  McCarthy  asked 
her  how  long  she  expected  them  to  stay.  The 
English  custom  of  naming  the  limit  of  the  visit 
seemed  at  that  day  almost  a  breach  of  hospitality. 

Of  course,  every  one  in  the  world  of  letters, 
and  in  the  world  at  large,  came  here  on  little 
pilgrimages;  so,  quiet  and  retired  as  it  was,  we 
were  apt  to  meet  there  the  personages  whose 
names  were  in  people's  mouths.  I  remember  that 
we  met  Huxley  there,  and  Doctor  Brown,  the 
well-beloved  author  of  Rab  and  His  Friends,  and 
many  another,  who  seem  to  me  now  like  shadow 
figures  walking  across  the  stage  of  life. 

But  it  was  always  better  when  no  one  but  our- 
selves were  there;  perhaps  Julia  would  read  the 
newspaper  aloud,  with  the  running  comments  of 
her  father;  or  Mr.  Bryant  would  ask  for  it  and, 
taking  a  candle,  make  a  reflector  of  his  right  hand 
curved  around  the  candle-flame,  holding  the  paper 
with  his  left.  I  remember  watching  the  pict- 
uresque effect  of  the  light  shining  red  between  his 
124 


"NESTLEDOWN" 

fingers  and  the  shaggy  brows  bent  low  on  the 
paper.  Sometimes  allusions  in  the  paper  sent 
him  to  the  book-shelves,  his  candle-light  waver- 
ing along  the  rows  of  books  until  he  found  what 
he  needed  for  our  enlightenment,  or  for  vindica- 
tion of  his  own  views.  Being  of  a  more  discursive 
and  outspoken,  or  perhaps  more  reckless,  mind 
than  my  friend  Julia,  I  was  often  set  right  in  my 
opinions,  for  Mr.  Bryant  had  something  of  the 
schoolmaster  in  his  composition. 

Mrs.  Bryant  was  a  dear  and  most  appropriate 
figure  in  the  family  of  three — the  poet  and  his 
gentle,  lifelong  companion,  and  the  daughter 
Julia,  who  was,  happily  for  me,  an  especial  friend. 
Later,  after  the  death  of  Mrs.  Bryant,  the  father 
and  daughter  lived  on  in  the  big  old  Long  Island 
farm-house,  which  had  been  adapted  by  Mr.  Bry- 
ant to  his  own  tastes  and  wants,  until  he  bought 
and  opened  the  house  in  New  York  where  he  died. 

Once  I  went  along  the  Sound  on  a  little  yacht 
owned  and  sailed  by  William  Cooper,  brother  of 
Peter  Cooper.  He  was  an  ardent  yachtsman,  and 
commodore  of  the  Brooklyn  Yacht  Club.  Peter 
Cooper  was  of  the  party  and  we  were  to  dine  with 
the  Bryants.  I  don't  know  how  I  came  to  be  of 
this  small  dinner  party  of  three  men,  all  in  the 
seventies — I  and  my  friend  Julia — but  I  remember 
that  they  were  a  wonderfully  interesting  trio. 
Dear,  single-minded  Peter  Cooper  and  his  amusing 
nautical  brother,  and  the  poet  who  sat  at  the 
125 


YESTERDAYS 

head  of  his  table  with  a  hospitable  smile,  which 
was,  after  all,  a  little  tolerant,  like  an  elder 
contemplative  of  boys  at  play;  for  these  two 
gray  brothers,  with  every  mark  of  age  upon  them, 
still  belonged  to  the  play-field. 

It  was  rarely  that  Mr.  Bryant  was  playful,  but 
I  remember  once  dining  in  the  Bois  in  Paris  with 
him  and  Julia,  and  a  great  friend  of  theirs,  Miss 
Laura  Leupp,  a  very  lively,  clever  girl,  with  no 
awe  in  her  composition  and  whose  father  had  been 
one  of  Mr.  Bryant's  closest  friends.  I  do  not 
know  how  or  why  (we  must  have  been  in  a  very 
genial  mood)  we  came  to  be  repeating  poems  each 
especially  likecl,  but  Miss  Leupp  would  have  none 
of  it.  Mr.  Bryant,  who  enjoyed  her  kittenish 
ways,  insisted  that  she  must  at  some  time  of  her 
life  have  liked  some  particular  poem  well  enough 
to  remember  it. 

No,  she  had  not,  but  after  much  pressure  ad- 
mitted that  she  had  been  taught  one  in  her  school- 
days. She  "did  not  like  it,  but  she  had  to  learn 
it,"  and  if  Mr.  Bryant  insisted  she  would  repeat 
it;  whereupon  she  began,  in  a  very  school-girl 
sing-song  voice,  to  repeat  "Thanatopsis,"  and 
after  the  first  shock  of  recognition  the  poet- 
author  was  greatly  amused.  Notwithstanding  his 
kindly  acceptance  of  me  as  his  daughter's  friend 
and  consequently  a  house  intimate,  I  really  was 
always  conscious  of  a  sort  of  awe  of  him,  as  of 
something  unknown  and  not  quite  understand- 
126 


"NESTLEDOWN" 

able;  and  it  amuses  me  now  to  remember  that  the 
one  occasion  on  which  I  was  absolutely  certain 
of  his  approval  was  when  I  remarked,  with  im- 
mense enthusiasm,  "New,  well-boiled  oatmeal 
and  cream  like  this  are  fit  food  for  the  gods!"  and 
at  this  unpremeditated  speech  his  smile  was  abso- 
lutely thrilling.  Things  which  grew — trees  and 
flowers  and  all  of  plant  life — could  never  have 
been  doubtful  of  his  approval,  for  he  loved  them 
all,  large  or  small,  magnificent  or  simply  beautiful. 
He  was  not  quite  satisfied  with  the  white  water- 
lilies  which  grew  along  his  borders  of  the  little 
inlet  after  I  had  shown  him  the  great  white  blos- 
soms which  inhabited  the  "Two-Mile  Mill-pond"; 
when  I  carried  over  some  roots  I  had  drawn  from 
its  oozy  depths,  he  was  frankly  delighted. 

Once  when  I  met  Julia  on  the  Brooklyn  ferry- 
boat, she  said:  "Father  has  bought  a  new  farm. 
You  must  come  and  see  it." 

"Why,"  said  I,  "did  he  want  more  acres?" 

"Oh  no;  it  does  not  join  us,  but  it  has  a  great 
oak-tree  upon  it  and  Father  was  afraid  they  would 
cut  it  down." 

The  next  time  I  went  to  Roslyn  we  all  walked 
over  to  the  new  farm  and  the  big  oak,  and  Mr. 
Bryant  took  a  tape-measure  from  his  pocket  and 
we  stood  around  the  tree  base,  holding  the  measure 
straight,  while  he  read  off  the  measurements: 
"Three!  nine!  ten — and  a  quarter!  I  told  Mr. 
de  Forest  it  would  measure  ten  feet  around,"  said 
127 


YESTERDAYS 

Mr.  Bryant.  "Then  it  is  the  largest  oak  on  the 
Island,"  he  finished  contentedly,  and  no  million- 
aire in  the  world  could  have  been  happier  in  his 
possessions. 

On  cool  evenings  when  a  fire  was  burning  in  the 
great  Franklin  stove  in  the  library  Mr.  Bryant 
had  the  common  weakness  of  constantly  stirring 
the  logs,  crossing  them,  or  dropping  them  into 
new  places,  always  expounding  the  philosophy  of 
lighting  a  fire  from  the  top ;  and  my  reverence  for 
the  preacher  never  prevented  my  expressing  a 
doubt  of  the  soundness  of  the  theory. 

Now,  after  the  many  years  since  he  has  passed 
from  this  particular  theater  of  the  soul,  my  mem- 
ory is  of  two  distinct  men — the  one  who  made 
"The  Waterfowl"  an  inspiration,  a  picture  of  far- 
off  aerial  motion,  with  the  sound  and  sense  of 
balanced  words  lifting  us  to  a  mood  of  high  and 
reverent  thought,  and  the  other  a  kindly,  domestic 
soul  who  enjoyed,  with  a  certain  dignified  modera- 
tion, all  the  small  things  of  daily  life. 

One  cannot  help  laughing  at  Lowell's  character- 
ization of  the  quality  of  his  work,  in  his  "Fable 
for  Critics" — "He  stirs  you  up  with  the  very 
North  Pole"' — but  in  contrast  to  the  fevered  ut- 
terances of  the  poets  whose  aim  seems  to  be  the 
inciting  to  wrath,  passion,  and  despair,  or  even  to 
more  ignoble  moods,  the  "North  Pole"  of  Bry- 
ant's sentiment  is  welcome. 

In  the  hall  of  dear  old  "Nestledown"  there  stands 
128 


"NESTLEDOWN" 

a  large,  old-fashioned,  mirrored  hat-stand,  which 
was  once  a  part  of  the  hall  furnishing  of  the  Bryant 
city  house,  the  home  from  which  his  soul  passed 
on  into  the  unknown — 

not,  like  the  quarry-slave  at  night. 
Scourged  to  his  dungeon,  but  sustained  and  soothed 
By  an  unfaltering  trust,  approach  thy  grave 
Like  one  that  wraps  the  drapery  of  his  couch 
About  him,  and  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams. 

As  I  pass  up  and  down  the  stairs  I  look  at  the 
broad  glass,  with  the  thought  of  the  poet  in  my 
mind  and  of  its  reflections  of  his  daily  comings 
and  goings,  and  wonder  where  they  are,  whether 
they  have  melted  into  its  substance,  underlying 
those  of  to-day  making  up  a  company  of  shadows 
where  old  friends  meet  in  shadow-land.  I  like  to 
fancy  that  all  those  reflections  have  an  existence 
somewhere,  and  that  we  are  a  part  of  it. 

An  event  of  these  years  was  the  advent  of  the  first 
"Nestledown"  baby,  a  little  girl  whom  we  called 
Dora,  whose  welcome  by  the  world  was  responded 
to  with  such  cheerful  and  whole-hearted  gladness 
that,  as  she  grew  out  of  babyhood  and  finally 
into  girl  and  womanhood,  the  welcome  has  been 
constantly  redoubled. 

Blessed  be  those  souls  who  are  glad!  They  are 
a  salve  for  sorrow  and  fatigue.  A  sun  in  days  of 
darkness,  a  joy  in  sorrow,  a  ray  of  heaven  shining 
through  the  uncertainness  of  earth. 

It  was  curious  to  see  the  welcome  she  received 
9  129 


YESTERDAYS 

from  our  bachelor  friends,  some  of  whom  had 
become  almost  a  part  of  the  family;  the  mixture 
of  curiosity  and  interest  with  which  they  looked 
upon  a  real  baby — and  the  mystery  of  it!  It 
added  to  the  quality  of  the  sensation  that  it  was 
a  girl  baby!  Through  her,  they  had  a  glimpse  of 
the  wonder  of  babyhood.  She  might  have  been 
a  little  princess,  instead  of  an  ordinary  family 
fact,  from  the  awe  and  admiration  she  inspired. 
The  little  lady  had  her  preferences  and  would 
hold  out  her  arms  to  be  taken  by  the  serious, 
dignified  Gifford  as  if  there  were  a  peculiar  under- 
standing between  them,  as  if  they  had  had  speech 
of  each  other  and  had  found  something  in  each 
which  answered  to  the  other's  ideal. 

It  was  inevitable  that  this  child  should  grow  up 
a  painter;  it  began  in  her  babyhood. 

The  second  "  Nestledown"  baby  was  a  boy  who, 
during  his  first  four  or  five  years,  was  our  travel- 
ing companion  in  our  winter  journeyings  abroad. 
In  truth,  he  was  a  very  enjoyable  companion, 
carrying  with  him  a  flavor  of  family  and  home 
and  flattering  us  by  being  called  an  angel  in  every 
language  in  Europe.  I  suppose  child-beauty  gives 
us  our  idea  of  angelhood,  since  we  possess  nothing 
which  more  nearly  fulfils  our  sense  of  the  beauty 
of  celestial  things. 

If  the  physical  perfection  of  childhood  could 
last,  what  a  possession  it  would  be  for  humanity! 
But,  unfortunately,  all  the  sordid  necessities  of 
130 


"NESTLEDOWN" 

life  are  at  war  with  it ;  even  the  process  of  natural 
growth  misplaces  the  baby  features  and  destroys 
their  symmetry,  and  so  human  beauty  of  coun- 
tenance is  rare  upon  the  earth.  Let  us  hope  that 
when  we  are  born  into  the  reality  of  angelhood 
the  soul  progress  which  belongs  to  that  state  may 
not  include  within  it  necessities  which  are  in 
themselves  temptations. 

When  the  oldest  boy,  whose  exploring  tenden- 
cies had  influenced  us  in  establishing  a  country 
home,  grew  older,  I  found  that  he  was  quite 
as  capable  of  disappearances  on  a  fifty-acre  plot 
of  ground  as  from  a  city  lot.  If  I  could  have 
understood  that  the  child  was  a  born  world- 
wanderer,  that  his  foot  claimed  contact  with  the 
soil  of  all  countries,  and  that  it  was  the  unknown 
which  called  him,  perhaps  I  could  have  become 
sooner  reconciled  to  the  frequent  misery  caused 
by  his  disappearances.  Why  should  the  unseen 
and  the  unknown  have  claimed  this  child  and 
kept  his  unfaltering  allegiance  to  the  end  of  his 
days?  Once,  after  having  been  lost  and  searched 
for  for  hours,  we  found  him  in  the  hollow  of  a 
cedar  hedge  which  no  one  could  reach  except  by 
a  process  of  wriggling  along  the  ground.  He 
explained  that  he  was  about  to  start  on  a  long 
journey  "west"  and  that  this  was  his  storehouse 
of  supplies;  the  collection  was  a  motley  one,  in- 
cluding cedar  apples,  a  bottle  of  French  mustard, 
some  hickory-nuts,  and  several  cakes  of  maple 


YESTERDAYS 

sugar.  Another  long  absence  was  shared  by  his 
friend,  Eddie  Cooper,  son  of  Dr.  James  Cooper,  of 
New  York,  who  was  my  husband's  closest  friend 
and  the  object  of  an  affection  of  the  sort  which 
inexperienced  young  wives  are  apt  to  resent. 
The  two  boys,  having  seen  on  the  globe  which 
illustrated  their  geography  lessons  that  China  was 
opposite  America,  reasoned  that  digging  through 
would  open  a  short  cut  to  this  strange  land; 
whereupon  they  began  excavating  in  one  of  my 
flower-beds  as  being  more  easily  worked  than 
harder  ground.  Their  progress  was  enlivened  by 
the  discovery  of  a  "gold"  mine  which  these  in- 
cipient explorers  decided  to  keep  quite  to  them- 
selves for  their  own  profit;  therefore,  filling  their 
pockets  with  the  bits  of  yellow  quartz,  they 
started  on  an  expedition  the  first  stage  of  which 
was  to  be  an  ice-cream  saloon  in  Jamaica.  Their 
orders  of  this  refreshment  were  so  generous  that 
they  were  questioned  as  to  their  ability  to  pay; 
but  their  assurance  of  plenty  of  money  satisfied 
the  ice-cream  man  until  the  "gold"  nuggets  were 
produced.  When  the  boys  found  these  would  not 
be  received  as  legal  tender  they  decided  to  post- 
pone their  western  trip  until  they  could  come 
home  and  start  afresh.  But  the  ice-cream  man 
would  not  let  them  go  without  some  sort  of 
security,  and  so  proposed  to  keep  their  coats. 
The  boys  demurred  violently;  they  could  not  go 
home  without  coats.  Finally  he  compromised  by 
132 


"NESTLEDOWN" 

taking  their  caps;  they  could  go  bareheaded.  By 
this  time  it  was  night  and  Mike  was  driving  me 
around  the  neighborhood  inquiring  everywhere 
for  my  boys.  And  thus  I  came  upon  them,  in- 
dignant, and  tired,  and  quite  sure  for  once  that 
home  was  a  good  place. 


MY  NEW   YORK  YEARS 

TN  spite  of  manifold  attractions,  the  winters  at 
•*•  "Nestledown"  had  their  drawbacks,  since  my 
husband  found  it  hard  to  be  in  two  places  at  once. 
He  could  not  sacrifice  business,  and  he  was  un- 
willing to  forego  the  comforts  of  a  home;  in  the 
end,  he  bought  a  house  in  Twenty-fifth  Street 
between  Fifth  and  Sixth  Avenues,  which  we  found 
a  convenient  center  for  schools  and  friends  and 
all  of  our  varied  interests.  The  popular  school 
for  girls  at  that  time  was  that  of  Miss  Haines 
and  Mile,  de  Janon's,  and  its  musical  advantages, 
with  Richard  Hoffman  at  the  head  of  the  in- 
strumental department  and  Madame  Seguin  for 
singing,  were  unquestioned.  Mrs.  Seguin  was  the 
popular  teacher  of  the  day,  and  she  and  her  hus- 
band had  established  an  English  opera  company  in 
New  York,  the  first  local  and  continuous  organi- 
zation of  the  kind  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
After  Mr.  Seguin's  death,  Mrs.,  or  Madame, 
Seguin,  as  she  was  called,  developed  many  de- 
lightful voices  in  the  period  when  singing  was  far 


MY   NEW   YORK   YEARS 

more  frequently  than  now  a  social  accomplish- 
ment. She  was  an  aunt  of  the  famous  Alboni, 
and  it  was  amusing  to  hear  her  grumble  at  the 
"appetite"  which  ministered  to  the  size  of  the 
famous  contralto. 

Miss  Lily  Greenough,  of  Boston,  famous  as  a 
society  girl  with  a  wonderful  voice,  had  perhaps 
something  to  do  with  the  prevailing  vogue  of  so- 
ciety singing.  She  was  much  in  New  York  in 
the  years  which  antedated  her  remarkable  social 
career  abroad,  when  as  Mrs.  Moulton  she  was  a 
frequent  guest  at  the  Tuileries  and  Compiegne. 

One  winter,  before  we  were  established  in  our 
own  New  York  home,  we  boarded  at  a  house  on 
the  corner  of  Fourteenth  Street  and  Irving  Place, 
where  Mrs.  Greenough  and  her  daughter  were 
also  staying.  Miss  Lily's  attractions  were  com- 
paratively in  the  bud ;  she  was  even  then  a  charm- 
ing creature,  and,  although  less  delicately  beau- 
tiful than  the  characteristic  American  maiden, 
she  was  very  attractive  in  a  free,  girlish,  almost 
challenging  use  of  her  exceptional  gifts.  Endowed 
with  beauty,  tact,  and  an  inexhaustible  stock  of 
silvery  notes,  she  was  bound  to  attract  attention 
in  the  great  world.  Nowadays  she  would  in- 
evitably become  a  professional ;  the  lure  of  money 
would  draw  her;  but  in  those  days  social  life  was 
paramount  and  the  girl  of  gifts  like  hers  would 
rather  be  a  great  social  success  than  a  money- 
coining  opera-singer. 


YESTERDAYS 

It  is  interesting  to  me  to  remember  the  found- 
ing at  this  time  of  "The  Century"  Club,  and  the 
lively  discussion  of  its  prospects  among  the  men 
we  knew.  It  was  the  outcome  of  a  sketch  club 
which  existed  among  the  painters — men  like 
Morse,  the  elder  Inman,  Ingham,  Vanderlyn, 
Cole,  Durand,  and  a  few  younger  men;  as  an 
institution  it  was  very  popular  and  difficult  of  ad- 
mission. The  members  who  were  not  artists  were 
literary  and  professional  men,  and  cultured  and 
successful  merchants,  who  proposed  that  it  should 
be  merged  into  a  club  for  "gentlemanly  and  social 
intercourse  among  artists  and  men  of  letters,  with 
a  permanent  local  habitation."  Among  its  found- 
ers were  the  men  of  the  day,  whose  names  were 
in  everybody's  mouth.  The  result  was  The  Cen- 
tury, pre-eminently  an  artistic  and  literary  club, 
and  its  plan  of  "gentlemanly  and  social  inter- 
course" has  been  abundantly  justified  during  the 
succeeding  years  of  the  nineteenth  and  the  early 
ones  of  the  twentieth  century. 

The  Century  was  the  scene  of  many  fine  doings 
in  the  early  fifties,  such  as  the  Twelfth-night 
pageants  when  some  favorite  society  belle  was 
crowned  queen  of  revels;  the  welcomes  and  fare- 
wells to  distinguished  strangers  from  other  lands; 
and  special  meetings  when  certain  of  its  members 
were  offered  special  honor.  Especially  notable 
was  the  occasion  when  the  "Centurians"  gath- 
ered to  do  honor  to  the  poet  Bryant  on  his  sev- 
136 


MY   NEW   YORK   YEARS 

entieth  birthday,  each  artist  with  a  gift  picture, 
which  afterward  made  a  "gem-gallery"  of  the 
pleasant  dining-room  in  the  house  at  Roslyn. 
Poets  brought  poems  and  literary  friends  con- 
tributed verses  and  tributes;  it  was  a  gathering 
of  men  and  women  whose  lives  had  been  an  honor 
to  themselves  and  to  their  city,  and  who  gladly 
came  together  to  honor  the  poet  whose  thoughts 
had  enriched  the  world. 

Among  them  all  stood  Bryant,  for  once  fully 
awake  and  keenly  conscious  of  the  warmth  of 
feeling  shown  by  one  and  all.  There  seemed  to  be 
a  sort  of  surprised  and  pleased  recognition  of 
the  general  sympathy  looking  out  from  under  his 
shaggy  eyebrows;  his  satisfied  glance  rested  like 
a  benediction  upon  the  assembly,  and  as  one  took 
the  hand  of  the  small,  sweet-faced  woman  who 
had  grown  old  beside  him,  and  was  the  sole  human 
being  of  whom  he  seemed  eternally  and  vividly  con- 
scious, one  felt  all  the  meaning  of  the  tide  of  hu- 
man appreciation  which  was  circling  around  them. 

His  characteristic  withdrawal  of  himself  seemed 
forgotten.  The  humanity  in  him  stepped  out  to 
answer  that  which  beamed  upon  him  from  every 
member  of  the  assemblage.  It  was  not  the  far- 
away consciousness  of  the  poet  which  answered 
them,  but  the  brotherhood  in  man. 

The  New-Yorkers  of  to-day,  who  take  Central 
Park  as  a  part  of  the  city  which  has  always  ex- 
isted, can  hardly  enjoy  it  as  do  the  few  who  re- 


YESTERDAYS 

member  its  creation  and  who  watched  the  evolu- 
tion of  every  new  feature  as  of  a  weekly  miracle, 
emerging  from  the  ground.  The  original  site  was 
a  dreary  waste,  a  jumble  of  the  cast-offs  and  rub- 
bish of  city  life.  The  country  road  or  roads,  which 
led  to  the  farmlands,  and  Hudson  River  towns 
beyond,  passed  through  a  desert  of  weed-grown 
spaces  where  emigrants  had  piled  rejected  lumber 
into  shanties,  shelters  for  their  families  and  their 
goats.  The  human  children  played  at  the  foot 
of  rock  ledges,  and  the  goat  children  climbed  them 
and  posed  upon  two  hind  feet  in  picturesque  at- 
titudes, thereby  antedating  and  foreshadowing  the 
future  statuary  in  the  Park. 

This  was  the  state  of  the  chaotic  hinterland  of 
the  city  when  it  entered  into  the  minds  of  a  few 
enlightened  or  imaginative  "City  Fathers"  to 
create  a  park  which  should  challenge  perfection 
and  which  should  be  located  midway  between  the 
two  rivers  which  lapped  the  growing  "Empire 
City."  It  was  a  vision  which  savored  of  magic, 
and  fortunately  for  the  public  its  materializa- 
tion was  put  into  the  hands  of  men  who  were  com- 
petent. Fortunately  for  us,  also,  these  men  were 
our  personal  friends,  and  their  plans  and  work 
became  matters  of  daily  and  rejoicing  interest  to 
us.  Frederick  Law  Olmsted,  Calvert  Vaux,  and 
George  E.  Waring  were  the  three  selected  by 
destiny  to  provide  a  lasting  playground  for  the 
ever-increasing  generations  of  New  York. 
138 


MY   NEW   YORK   YEARS 

Our  afternoon  drives  were  nearly  always  punct- 
uated by  a  stop  at  the  house  on  the  far  edge  of 
the  welter  of  park  preparation  where  Calvert  Vaux 
had  established  his  family  during  the  period  of 
building. 

Mr.  Vaux  was  an  Englishman,  Mr.  Olmsted  a 
Bostonian,  and  Mr.  Waring — who  was  our  par- 
ticular enthusiasm — was  a  man  midway  of  the 
twenties  and  thirties,  who,  after  a  course  of  en- 
gineering and  agricultural  study,  had  been  for 
two  years  manager  of  Horace  Greeley's  farm  at 
Chappaqua.  A  part  of  his  reputation  had  be(  ,1 
gained  by  lectures  upon  agriculture,  and  although 
he  was  a  civil  engineer  by  profession,  he  had  a 
very  lively  sense  of  the  value  and  beauty  of 
nature's  own  processes.  As  my  husband  had  the 
education  of  an  engineer,  and  had  practised  that 
profession  in  the  beginning  of  his  manhood,  the 
problems  of  park  building  interested  him  hugely, 
while  the  planting  of  trees  and  ground-growth 
was  of  vital  import  to  me.  I  remember  particular- 
ly the  setting  of  its  rows  of  elms  upon  the  Mall. 
It  was  then  an  experiment  to  plant  trees  larger 
than  saplings,  but  a  Mall  was  one  of  the  needed 
features  of  the  new  pleasure-ground,  and  Mr. 
Olmsted  and  his  associates  undertook  its  im- 
mediate production.  This  was  long  before  the 
day  of  the  Long  Island  miracles  of  producing  fifty- 
year-old  lawns  in  a  year  or  two  of  time;  but  the 
elms  of  the  Mall  were  planted  and  grew — some- 


YESTERDAYS 

what  hesitatingly — to  noble  and  mature  life;  and 
everybody  accepted  it  as  quite  a  thing  of  course 
without  knowing  the  anxieties  that  had  attended 
its  accomplishment. 

Waring  was  not  only  an  authority  upon  agri- 
cultural and  engineering  matters,  but  a  man  of 
delightful  social  gifts  and  pronounced  literary 
ability.  Perhaps,  also,  a  part  of  his  charm  was 
due  to  the  fact  that  he  was  one  of  the  handsomest 
men  of  his  time.  We  do  not  look  for  beauty  in 
men,  and  there  is  an  unacknowledged  belief  that 
exc3ssive  good  looks  are  apt  to  interfere  with 
general  development ;  but  when  a  man  proves  in  his 
own  person  that  physical  perfection  and  mental 
power  may  go  hand  in  hand,  I  notice  that  the 
door  of  success  is  generally  wide  open  before  him. 

There  were  two  Waring  sisters,  equally  beau- 
tif  .-n  their  way,  and  the  three  together — the 
"  Y  .ring  Trio  " — were  a  joy  to  all  who  knew  them. 
Curiously  enough,  neither  of  his  beautiful  sisters 
married.  Sarah,  who  was  more  particularly  our 
friend  and  a  woman  of  great  mental  as  well  as 
physical  charm,  died  in  Rome  many  years  after 
the  period  of  which  I  am  writing.  I  have  never 
known  the  sequel  of  Jane  Waring's  career.  It 
was  involved  with  the  Idealist  Community  of 
Central  New  York,  that  curious  social  experiment 
which  enticed  the  brilliant  your<g  English  diplo- 
mat, Laurence  Oliphant,  from  his  well-earned 
success  in  his  own  country,  and  induced  him,  to- 
140 


MY   NEW   YORK    YEARS 

gether  with  his  wife  and  mother,  a  woman  of 
exacting  tastes  and  exceptional  social  and  pe- 
cuniary advantages,  to  endure  a  menial  existence 
under  most  primitive  conditions.  Who  can  cal- 
culate the  power  of  an  ideal,  even  if  conceived 
unworthily  ? 

After  the  triumphant  accomplishment  of  Cen- 
tral Park — a  work  which  crowned  the  three  men 
who  made  it,  Waring  became  major  and  afterward 
colonel  in  a  cavalry  regiment,  in  which  he  served 
thoughout  our  Civil  War.  When  he  came  back, 
handsomer  than  ever,  and  with  abundant  laurels, 
he  built  for  himself  a  house  upon  a  small  gore  of 
land  in  Newport  and  gave  it  the  name  of  "The 
Hypothenuse."  Our  visits  to  them  were  full  of 
enjoyment.  Mr.  Waring  found  abundant  and 
lucrative  occupation  in  devising  sanitary  living 
conditions  for  the  semi-royal  families  of  Newport. 

The  small  side -lawn  of  "The  Hypothenuse" 
gave  "ample  room  and  verge  enough"  in  which 
to  demonstrate  his  successful  systems  of  house 
drainage,  devices  which  became  a  sort  of  bed-rock 
for  all  later  plans  of  household  engineering. 

There  was  a  charming  winter  society  in  New- 
port, composed  of  gifted  men  and  women  whose 
lives  blossomed  at  all  seasons.  Julia  Ward  Howe 
was  a  summer  resident,  but  her  "blue  teas"  began 
early  in  the  spring  and  lasted  until  late  in  the 
fall;  and  to  their  weekly  convocations  Colonel 
Higginson,  John  La  Farge,  Samuel  Colman,  Colo- 
141 


YESTERDAYS 

nel  and  Mrs.  Waring,  "Susan  Coolidge"  and  her 
sisters,  and  many  another  who  could  do  things  and 
say  things  and  write  things  which  everybody  will- 
ingly saw  and  heard  and  read,  contributed. 

One  of  the  contributions  to  the  final  "blue 
tea"  was  the  following  "Ultra-Marine,"  its  author 
being  Col.  T.  W.  Higginson: 

Dame  Nature  once  grew  weary  of  her  hues,  and  pined  for 

more  and  yet  profounder  blues. 
She  told  them  o'er — blue  water  and  blue  sky,  and  the  calm 

beauty  of  a  maid's  blue  eye; 
The  far  horizen  veiled  in  azure  haze,  and  a  blue  devil  lost 

in  a  blue  maze; 
The  first  sky  tint  that  marks  the  violet's  bud,  and  the  most 

ancient  drop  of  Boston  blood; 
The  blue  light  burned  by  sailors  in  distress,  a  "cordon 

bleu,"  and  e'en  a  bloomer  dress. 
She  studied  these;  yet  ne'er  a  dream  let  fall  to  find  the 

blue  that  should  surpass  them  all; 
And  cried,  still  yearning  to  fulfil  her  vow: 
How  shall  I  find  it?    Echo  answered,  "Howe." 

Colonel  Higginson  was  a  charming  and  im- 
portant figure  everywhere  and  never  more  so  than 
as  host,  keeping  every  one  on  the  line  of  what 
they  knew  best,  or  loved  the  most,  or  had  the 
most  experience  in.  He  and  Mrs.  Higginson 
were  domiciled  in  the  quiet  wing  of  a  small  hotel, 
which  entertained  many  and  various  visitors  to 
Newport.  I  was  told  very  gleefully  by  Mrs. 
Higginson  of  an  occasion  when  a  very  important 
and  gorgeous  Catholic  prelate  from  Rome  was  a 
142 


MY   NEW   YORK   YEARS 

guest  of  the  house,  and  there  suddenly  alighted 
among  the  inmates  a  beautiful  young  woman  who 
proved  to  be  a  member  of  the  very  much  criti- 
cized theatrical  company  known  as  "The  Black 
Crook."  The  charms  of  the  lady  immediately 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  bishop,  and  Colonel 
Higginson,  inspired  perhaps  by  his  reverence  for 
the  church,  and  equally  by  his  inherited  dis- 
approval of  the  theater,  undertook  to  enlighten 
him  as  to  the  profession  of  the  charmer,  and  was 
met  by  the  frank  and  innocent  utterance: 
"I  do  not  disapprove  of  the  ballet — at  all!" 
The  Colonel  emphasized  the  encounter  in  rhyme, 
to  the  great  amusement  of  his  friends  and  the  frank 
delight  of  Mrs.  Higginson,  who  was  as  much  di- 
verted with  the  bishop's  simplicity  and  breadth 
of  view  as  with  the  Colonel's  Puritan  traditions. 
The  charming  and  amusing  poem  which  described 
the  affair  has  disappeared  from  my  "savings," 
but  I  hope  it  still  exists  in  some  other  one's 
possession. 

La  Farge  was  a  very  brilliant  talker  upon  art 
subjects,  and  his  views  were  always  given  with 
an  impassioned  personal  touch  and  eloquence  of 
diction  which  made  them  most  convincing.  War- 
ing used  to  say,  "La  Farge  is  the  best  talker  at 
the  New  York  clubs,"  and  I  fancy,  when  he  had 
an  audience  of  intelligent  men  who  knew  less  than 
he  of  the  subject  under  discussion,  that  that  dic- 
tum was  true.  It  is  curious  how  much  of  a  hold 
i43 


YESTERDAYS 

art  has  upon  people  who  know  very  little  of  it, 
either  technically  or  theoretically,  but  it  is  the 
eternal  lure  of  beauty  which  rules  the  world. 

Samuel  Colman  was  an  artist  by  profession, 
a  natural  and  gifted  colorist,  and  an  enthusiastic 
collector  of  Oriental  textiles.  Mrs.  Waring  was  a 
good  amateur  decorative  painter  and  we  all  knew 
enough  of  art  to  find  Mr.  La  Farge's  eloquent 
monologues  very  much  to  our  liking ;  consequently 
our  evenings  with  the  Higginsons  were  always 
anticipated  and  enjoyed. 

Mrs.  Higginson  was  a  helpless  invalid,  a  con- 
dition which  added  interest  to  a  personality  ab- 
solutely scintillating  with  cleverness.  She  was 
always  at  home  to  her  friends,  seated  in  a  wide  chair 
the  arms  of  which  spread  into  pear-shaped  tables, 
the  left  one  holding  a  liberally  selected  library, 
and  the  one  at  the  right  furnished  with  writing 
implements  of  various  kinds.  The  practice  of 
writing,  however,  was  so  difficult  for  her  disabled 
fingers  that  her  clever  thoughts  generally  found 
expression  in  speech  of  a  witty  bluntness  which 
held  all  the  characteristics  of  a  line  of  exceptional 
ancestors.  I  think  Colonel  Higginson  told  me  she 
was  one  of  the  Chalmerses,  that  old  New  England 
family  which  dominated  and  stamped  New  Eng- 
land thoughts  and  created  its  beliefs  during  its 
pbstic  centuries.  Being  comparatively  shut  in 
from  the  world,  Mrs.  Higginson  was  very  eager 
for  the  gossip  of  it,  particularly  that  which  per- 
144 


MY   NEW    YORK    YEARS 

tained  to  its  literary  and  artistic  features.  To 
send  her  a  new  book  and  wait  for  a  day  or  two 
for  her  verdict  upon  it  was  always  exciting.  It 
had  the  quality  of  an  authoritative  diagnosis  and 
made  one  wish  to  reread  the  things  she  approved 
or  censured.  Few  literary  reviewers  had  her 
breadth  or  insight. 

I  remember  that  my  first  reading  of  Lorna 
Doone  was  accomplished  after  an  exhaustive  dis- 
cussion of  it  by  La  Farge  and  Mrs.  Higginson, 
and  I  brought  to  its  reading  abundant  light 
upon  its  merits.  The  little  left-hand  library  of 
her  chair  was  never  without  the  newest  literature 
of  all  kinds,  and  in  fact  the  occupant  of  the  chair 
was  a  sort  of  literary  lighthouse  to  her  friends. 

Mr.  Colman's  rare  collection  of  weavings  of 
the  past  and  present  was  the  frequent  occasion 
of  discussion  upon  textile  art  between  La  Farge 
and  himself,  as  every  new  specimen  was  apt  to 
accompany  him  to  a  "Higginson  evening."  I 
listened  to  these  talks  with  interest  and  enthu- 
siasm and  followed  them  with  careful  study,  little 
thinking  or  foreseeing  that  I  should  one  day  be 
associated  with  Mr.  Colman,  Mr.  DeForest,  and 
Mr.  Tiffany  in  decorative  work,  and  that  the 
designing,  coloring,  and  weaving  of  textiles  would 
fall  to  my  share  as  a  co-wo.rker  with  these  two 
distinguished  painters. 

Many  years  after  these  pleasant  visits  at  ths 
Waring   house   in   Newport    I   met   the   gallant 
10  145 


YESTERDAYS 

Colonel,  in  1892,  at  the  Columbian  Exposition  in 
Chicago,  where  my  appointment  as  Director  of 
the  Woman's  Building  was  keeping  me,  to  find 
that  an  interval  of  thirty  years  had  changed  his 
early  manhood  into  a  prosperous  and  good-looking 
early-old-age.  After  the  first  greeting  we  looked 
at  each  other  with  interest. 

"Well,"  said  I,  "you  have  done  things!" 

"So  have  you!"  said  he.' 

"Yes,"  I  answered,  "I  am  trying  to  make  people 
whose  lives  are  saved  by  your  sanitary  measures 
happy  with  things  beautiful." 

"Let  us  shake  hands  over  the  invisible  crowd," 
he  said.  And  we  solemnly  shook  hands  not  only 
over  them,  but  over  the  crowded  happenings  of 
thirty  years. 

"Tell  me  about  Mr.  Wheeler  and  the  children," 
said  he. 

"Mr.  Wheeler  is  waiting  patiently  for  Dora  to 
finish  a  ceiling  for  the  New  York  Commissioner's 
Library;  then  they  both  are  coming  here,  bring- 
ing Dora's  baby  with  them." 

"Dora's  baby!" 

"Yes.    You  knew  she  was  married?" 

"Dora's  baby!    Good  heavens!" 

"Yes,"  I  proceeded,  "and  Dunham  is  archi- 
tecting  very  good  houses." 

"And  how  about  Daisy,  and  Will?" 

"Daisy  is  in  Rome  with  her  aunt  Sarah.    Will 
is  out  in  Portland,  Oregon,  on  a  ranch." 
146 


MY    NEW    YORK    YEARS 

We  found  a  quiet  place  back  of  the  exhibits, 
and  sat  down  for  a  talk. 

"What  have  you  done  since  your  yellow-fever 
exploits  in  Memphis?"  I  asked. 

"I  hardly  know,"  he  said.  "I  am  on  the  New 
York  Board  of  Health  and  am  likely  to  be  sent  to 
Cuba. 

"And  now,"  said  he,  smiling  his  frank  old  smile, 
"do  you  mind  telling  me  just  how  you  came  to 
cut  loose  from  the  old  ways  to  start  in  as  a  business 
woman?" 

"Not  a  bit,"  said  I;  "it  just  happened.  You 
know  I  fell  down  on  my  effort  to  unite  art  and 
philanthropy  in  the  'Society  of  Decorative  Art,' 
then  I  partnered  Mrs.  Choate  in  founding  the 
'Woman's  Exchange';  finally  I  joined  Mr.  Tif- 
fany, Mr.  Colman,  and  Mr.  DeForest  in  a  purely 
business  scheme  which  we  called  'The  Associated 
Artists';  and  here  I  am." 

'  'Does  Thomas  like  it  ?" 

"Yes,  he  says  it  keeps  me  busy  and  makes  up  to 
me  for  not  voting." 

"He  always  was  a  Solomon — " 

' '  And  a  dear ! ' '  interrupted  I .  "  He  has  given  me 
a  house  in  Twenty-third  Street,  because  I  couldn't 
get  on  with  three  partners  any  better  than  I  did 
with  twenty.  So  now  I  am  playing  it  alone." 

Waring  laughed.  "Yes,"  said  he,  "for  when  we 
know  a  thing  we  don't  like  to  be  meddled  with. 
But  you  should  try  a  city  council!" 


YESTERDAYS 

And  we  shook  hands  again  and  parted. 

It  did  not  seem  long  before  we  read  in  the  news- 
papers of  his  death  by  yellow  fever,  the  scourge 
which  he  had  so  successfully  combated  in  our 
own  country. 

"Poor  Waring!"  said  my  husband,  sorrowfully, 
"he  was  an  all-round  man  doing  such  good  work! 
He  helped  the  world." 

"Was  there  ever  another  useful  man  with  his 
charm?"  I  thought.  And  everybody  was  saying, 
"Poor  Waring!" 

He  had  gone  out  in  a  last  grapple  with  one  of 
his  old  foes. 

We  had  become  very  intimate  with  the  Vaux 
family  during  the  Central  Park  period,  owing 
perhaps  to  our  strong  friendship  with  his  brother- 
in-law,  Jervis  McEntee,  the  dear,  gentle  painter 
of  "The  Melancholy  Days."  It  was  in  this  com- 
panionship that  we  often  met  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Richard  Stoddard— "Stoddard  the  poet."  They 
were  an  interesting  pair  of  visible  souls,  as  posi- 
tively two  as  a  man  and  woman  could  be  in  the 
close  companionship  of  married  life,  each  admiring 
and  appreciating  the  other  with  outspoken  frank- 
ness and  criticizing  each  other  with  amusing 
sharpness.  In  spite  of  constitutional  perversity, 
there  was  always  a  quality  of  sweetness  in  Stod- 
dard's  written  words,  although  his  spoken  ones 
were  often  startlingly  brusque.  I  remember  Mr. 
Gilder  telling  me  of  Stoddard's  appearance  in  his 
148 


MY    NEW    YORK    YEARS 

editorial  rooms  in  the  Century  headquarters  one 
morning,  bursting  out  with  characteristic  utter- 
ance: 

"Gilder,  I've  got  the  damnedest,  sweetest  little 
religious  poem  for  you  you  ever  heard,"  and  then 
proceeded,  with  profound  appreciation,  to  read  a 
really  holy  little  poem  for  the  Christmas  Century. 

Often  through  my  vanishing  years  I  have  found 
myself  repeating  words  of  his  which  fitted  my 
mood  and  place,  as  descriptive  utterances  of  other 
minds  will  often  do. 

We  are  stronger,  we  are  better,  under  Manhood's  sterner 

reign, 
Still  we  feel  that  something    sweet  follows  Youth  with 

flying  feet, 

And  it  never  comes  again. 

Something  beautiful  has  vanished,  and  we  sigh  for  it  in 

vain; 

We  beheld  it  everywhere  in  the  earth  and  in  the  air — 
But  it  never  comes  again. 

That  is  the  way  the  words  say  themselves  to 
me  in  my  mind.  Whether  they  are  exactly  placed 
I  do  not  know,  for  it  is  long  since  I  read  the  poem, 
but  it  has  been  a  singing  comfort  to  me  for  many 
a  year. 

Both  of  these  vivid,  self-asserting  spirits — the 

poet  and  his  mate — have  long  left  this  scene  of 

their  frank,  outspoken  personalities,  and  I  can 

imagine  them  wrangling  lovingly  along  the  lanes 

149 


YESTERDAYS 

of  Paradise,  to  the  consternation  of  their  fellow- 
immortals. 

These  were  the  years  when  the  Spirit  of  New 
York  was  eagerly  planning  and  preparing  for  the 
future  of  its  growing  family,  as  if  with  a  prophetic 
dread  of  the  individualism  which  should  follow 
upon  that  golden  period.  The  day  was  not  yet 
in  sight  when  multimillionaires  should  abound 
and  royally  endow  our  present  civic  benefits,  when 
Central  Park — the  darling  of  the  city — should 
adopt  and  cherish  that  other  child  of  inspiration, 
the  small  museum,  which  was  to  become  a  world 
benefactor,  wonderful  in  its  possessions  of  artistic 
riches. 

Then  there  was  the  new  Academy  of  Design  on 
the  corner  of  Twenty-third  Street  and  Fourth 
Avenue,  carefully  copied  from  its  Venetian  model 
and  representing  for  the  time  the  art  interests 
and  opportunities  of  New  York.  In  those  days 
there  existed  a  charming  general  society  of  all  who 
liked  and  wished  for  progress  in  art,  science,  liter- 
ature, or  the  drama;  and  it  had  its  acknowledged 
centers.  One  of  them  was  at  the  house  of  Cort- 
landt  Palmer  on  Madison  Square.  It  was  a  meet- 
ing-place for  discussion  and  sifting  of  things  not 
seen  but  felt  by  men  of  gift  and  insight ;  it  was  the 
forum  for  the  social-science  study  of  the  time. 
I  think  it  was  there  I  first  met  Mr.  Carnegie, 
already  known  for  his  achievements  in  the  world 
of  finance,  a  gay,  eager,  delightful  man  unsmoothed 
150 


MY   NEW   YORK   YEARS 

by  social  processes.  He  had  seen  the  world  and 
absorbed  its  knowledge  and  incidents  as  few  others 
have  done.  Indeed,  his  description  of  the  Taj 
Mahal,  that  Far  Eastern  monument  of  art  and 
enduring  testimony  of  love,  is  a  bit  of  subtle  and 
beautiful  word  painting  which  would  distinguish 
any  author. 

I  am  glad  to  have  known  Mr.  Carnegie  at  that 
period  of  his  life  and  before  his  schemes  of  general 
philanthropy  had  made  his  name  familiar  to  all 
the  world.  It  is  always  interesting  to  compare 
the  then  and  now,  and  to  see  how  times  and  char- 
acteristics modify  and  fit  each  other. 

Another  and  more  purely  literary  gathering 
was  at  the  house  of  Mrs.  Constance  Cary  Harrison, 
the  first  of  the  brilliant  Southern  women  to  accept 
Northern  society  and  forgive  it  for  being  Northern, 
although  perhaps  no  born-and-bred  Southern 
woman  could  ever  fully  understand  the  ideal 
which  underlay  the  fighting. 

Mrs.  Harrison,  herself  a  popular  and  clever 
author,  brought  together  all  the  prominent  or 
modest  writers  into  a  reading  club  where  each  one 
read  something  of  his  own  as  yet  unpublished 
work.  I  think  it  was  at  her  house  that  we  met 
Hjalmar  Hjorth  Boyesen,  then  quite  a  figure  in 
literary  society,  a  young  Norseman  who  had 
adopted  our  language  and  views,  but  in  whose 
work  there  was  always  a  pleasant  smack  of  Scan- 
dinavianism.  We  saw  very  much  of  him  at  our 


YESTERDAYS 

house  and  studio  and  enjoyed  his  friendship. 
After  distributing  his  homage  very  generously 
among  the  girls  of  New  York,  he  married  an  un- 
mistakable and  prominent  Western  beauty  and 
soon  after  accepted  a  professorship  at  Cornell 
University.  His  ardent  and  voluble  admiration 
of  his  wife's  charms  earned  the  indignant  criticism 
of  the  wives  of  other  professors  when  he  said  that 
"she  was  created  to  show  the  imperfections  of 
other  women."  Dear,  kind  man!  He  had  no  idea 
of  hurting  any  one's  feelings  by  his  outspoken 
admiration  of  his  wife's  extraordinary  beauty. 

Much  of  the  happiness  of  life  comes  from  associa- 
tion with  people  who  think  as  we  do,  who  speak 
the  same  mental  language,  whose  thoughts  travel 
a  neighborhood  road  every  inch  of  which  is 
familiar;  and  it  is  equally  true  that  positive  un- 
happiness  results  from  enforced  companionship 
with  people  who  think  in  different  lines.  It  may 
or  may  not  be  a  lower  track,  but  it  is  not  ours. 
There  is  a  sense  of  alienism  in  every  uttered  word, 
as  if  it  were  spoken  in  a  foreign  language. 

Much  of  our  personal  content  and  enjoyment 
in  life  came  from  the  friendship  of  people  whose 
inner  lives  were  hospitable  to  us;  who  welcomed 
us  to  the  well-furnished  quiet  in  which  they  dwelt. 
They  were  not  always  wide  open  to  the  world, 
these  characters  where  thought  listened  in  shy 
stillness  to  the  voices  which  have  gift  of  speech. 
There  are  many  of  them,  the  dear  souls  who  listen 
152 


MY   NEW   YORK   YEARS 

in  the  stillness.  They  are  the  judges  and  appreci- 
ators,  the  tribunal  before  which  those  who  speak 
must  stand,  and  whose  unerring  decisions  make 
fame  or  foretell  forgetfulness.  We  had  many  of 
these  friends,  and  their  acceptance  of  our  com- 
panionship was  a  joy;  they  enriched  our  tranquil 
days  with  sympathy. 


VI 

THE    CIVIL   WAR    PERIOD 

'"THIS  period,  so  happy  and  prosperous  with 
*•  us,  was  the  years  of  the  beginning  and  pros- 
ecution of  the  great  Civil  War.  Why  we  felt  the 
dreadful  tragedy,  and  even  the  nearness  of  it  so 
little,  I  can  now  hardly  understand,  except  that 
perhaps  we  were  young  and  absorbed  in  the  prog- 
ress of  our  personal  lives,  while  it  so  happened 
that  no  one  who  was  very  near  to  us  went  to  the 
war  and  never  returned.  Indeed,  it  was  not  until  it 
was  over  that  I  was  brought  into  actual  connection 
with  any  of  its  lasting  effects. 

Even  now,  in  the  last  few  years,  during  which 
I  have  grown  in  love  with  my  home  in  the  South, 
the  realization  of  the  greatness  of  that  long-past 
scourge  has  constantly  grown  upon  me. 

Twice  during  the  great  struggle  I  was  made  to 
realize  something  of  its  nature,  for  during  what 
were  called  the  "draft  riots"  there  was  a  fierce 
outbreak  in  New  York  against  the  measures  of 
the  government.  We  had  taken  a  large,  old- 
fashioned  house  for  the  winter  in  one  of  the 


THE    CIVIL   WAR    PERIOD 

"Twentieth"  streets,  between  Second  and  Third 
Avenues,  and  one  day  we  were  suddenly  made  con- 
scious of  a  great  commotion  outside.  I  can  only 
indicate  its  feeling  by  saying  it  was  like  a  human 
thunder-storm ;  the  force  of  the  hurrying  darkness 
seemed  as  sudden  and  imminent  as  that  of  some 
great  atmospheric  disturbance  in  nature.  There 
was  a  roar  in  the  streets  which  seemed  to  come 
from  the  direction  of  Third  Avenue. 

I  was  comparatively  alone,  my  husband  being 
in  Washington,  and  only  my  little  girl  and  the 
servants  were  with  me  in  the  house,  the  boy  being 
at  the  Quaker  School  near  by  in  Second  Avenue. 
One  courageous  young  servant  volunteered  to  go 
for  him.  Finally  they  came,  and,  boy-like  and 
servant-like,  they  went  near  enough  the  danger- 
line  of  the  roar  tounderst  and  its  object  and  nat- 
ure. It  was  a  mob  dragging  a  dead  man  (whom 
they  had  first  hanged  to  a  lamp-post)  over  and 
along  the  pavement.  The  mob  was  now  in  pur- 
suit of  colored  people  everywhere.  The  next  day, 
when  things  seemed  comparatively  peaceful,  I 
took  the  household  out  to  "Nestledown,"  feeling 
there  was  a  certain  safety  in  its  remoteness;  in 
fact,  when  we  arrived  everything  seemed  so  quiet 
and  normal  that  I  ordered  out  the  carriage  and 
drove  to  Jamaica. 

The  town  appeared  to  have  its  usual  sleepy 
aspect,  but  while  the  carriage  was  standing  in 
front  of  a  shop  the  horses  began  to  plunge  and 
' 


YESTERDAYS 

the  shop-people  came  to  help  quiet  them,  telling 
me  at  the  same  time  that  I  had  better  get  home 
as  fast  as  possible,  that  out  of  the  village  the 
horses  would  be  all  right.  And  so  they  were, 
although  Joe  was  hurrying  them  unusually  and 
looking  queer  and  gray  under  his  black  skin.  I 
thought  he  had  been  frightened  by  the  horses, 
and  wondered  at  it,  but  when  we  reached  home 
he  told  me  they  had  been  stoned  as  they  were 
standing  in  front  of  the  shop. 

"But  why?  Why?"  exclaimed  I.  "Who  would 
stone  our  horses?" 

"It  is  because  I  is  colored,  ma'am.  They  is 
after  the  colored  people." 

And  it  was  true.  There  was  and  is  a  large 
population  of  negroes  in  Jamaica,  descendants  of 
slaves  of  the  praminent  old  Dutch  families  who 
settled  it.  These  negroes  bear  some  of  the  most 
distinguished  names  of  Dutch  Colonial  history, 
and  are  carrying  them  on  to  future  generations, 
when  in  some  cases  the  families  who  originally 
owned  them  have  been  extinguished.  Most  of 
them  owned  small  houses  and  lived  in  their  own 
quarter,  a  part  of  the  sprawling  village  on  the 
South  Road.  All  the  afternoon,  trailing  parties 
of  them  passed  along  the  road  into  the  farther 
country,  carrying  bundles  and  bags  of  clothes, 
and  clocks  and  chairs  and  other  small  articles  of 
household  furniture. 

As  it  came  near  night  my  boy  told  me  the  car- 
156 


THE   CIVIL   WAR   PERIOD 

riage-loft  was  full  of  Joe's  friends.  Then  came 
surreptitious  advice  from  the  village  to  "get  rid 
of  them,"  that  there  would  be  an  expedition  to 
round  up  the  black  people  during  the  coming 
night.  Many  men  subject  to  the  draft  had 
gathered  together  in  town  and  they  were  possessed 
of  the  belief  that  the  colored  people  were  the  cause 
of  the  war  which  they  were  being  drafted  to  sup- 
port. I  had  not  an  adviser  or  friend  among  the 
widely  scattered  fanners  around  me.  We  were 
"city  people,"  although  among  the  very  earliest 
of  them,  and  consequently  strangers  to  those 
whose  generations  had  possessed  the  land  since 
the  Dutch  settlement. 

I  took  Joe  and  my  eight-year-old  boy  into  con- 
sultation, and  decided  to  turn  the  horses  into 
the  pasture,  close  up  the  carriage-house,  and  bring 
the  colored  people  inside  the  dwelling.  Then  an 
instinct  of  rebellion  against  invasion  and  a  thread 
of  native  abolition  sentiment  arose  within  me.  I 
was  quite  familiar  with  firearms,  for  my  husband 
had  taught  me  pistol-shooting  and  practice,  partly 
with  a  feeling  that  it  might  be  of  use  in  an  emer- 
gency, and  partly  as  a  matter  of  personal  interest 
and  amusement.  The  boy  could  also  load  and 
fire  both  gun  and  pistol,  as  befitted  the  son  of  a 
sport-loving  father.  He  could  at  least  damage 
something  or  somebody,  I  reflected ;  and  Joe  him- 
self was  a  famous  hunter,  while  two  or  three  of 
his  friends  were  of  the  same  kidney,  and  indeed 
i57 


YESTERDAYS 

were  partially  equipped  with  firearms.  So  the 
wooden  blinds  of  the  house  were  closed,  the  doors 
locked  and  bolted,  and  we  became  a  beleaguered 
garrison.  How  these  preparations  leaked  out  I 
never  knew,  although  perhaps  the  Irish  gardener 
and  house  servants  were  responsible .  B  ut  the  night 
passed  and  we  were  neither  disturbed  nor  attacked. 
With  the  morning  came  the  master  and  captain  of 
the  household,  and  we  were  hugged  and  praised 
and  tremulously  laughed  over.  My  husband,  be- 
ing a  prominent  Democrat,  called  a  party  council 
at  Pettit's,  the  hundred-year-old  hotel,  and  en- 
deavored, with  only  partial  success,  to  withdraw 
the  protection  of  his  party  from  these  lawbreakers. 

He  found  in  New  York  that  one  of  his  own  men, 
a  colored  porter,  whose  quality  and  character  he 
greatly  valued,  had  been  killed  by  the  mob  during 
his  absence.  Altogether,  the  covert  sympathy  of 
the  Democratic  party  with  the  outbreak  resulted 
in  the  augmentation  of  the  new  Republican  party 
by  more  than  one  indignant  citizen,  including  Mr. 
Wheeler.  Poor,  successful,  fallible  Republican 
party!  If  it  could  only  have  kept  the  purity  of 
the  patriot  impulse  out  of  which  it  was  born ! 

During  the  first  years  of  the  war  there  were 
constant  individual  and  social  efforts  for  the  com- 
fort of  soldiers  and  the  equipment  of  hospitals. 
Then  came  the  organization  known  as  "The 
Sanitary,"  to  which  every  one  contributed  money 
and  effort  and  which  made  effective  the  sympathy 
158 


THE   CIVIL   WAR    PERIOD 

and  contributions  of  the  whole  North.  It  was 
a  wonderfully  organized  and  equipped  machine 
which  we  supported  whole-heartedly,  giving  of 
our  labor  and  substance  without  stint,  and  yet 
I  know  that  we  of  the  North  never  fully  realized 
the  horror  of  the  war  which  made  it  necessary. 
Bret  Harte  proclaimed  the  mission  and  methods 
of  it  in  the  poem,  "How  are  you,  Sanitary?" 
which  voices,  as  few  poems  do,  the  spirit  of  the 
time. 

Down  the  picket-guarded  lane 

Rolled  the  comfort-laden  wain, 

Cheered  by  shouts  that  shook  the  plain, 

Soldier-like  and  merry: 
Phrases  such  as  camps  may  teach, 
Saber-cut  of  Saxon  speech, 
Such  as  "Bully!"     "Them's  the  peach!" 
"Wade  in,  Sanitary!" 

Right  and  left  the  caissons  drew 

As  the  car  went  lumbering  through, 

Quick  succeeding  in  review 

Squadrons  military; 
Sunburnt  men  with  beards  like  frieze, 
Smooth-faced  boys,  and  cries  like  these: 
"U.  S.  San.  Com."    "That's  the  cheese!" 

"Pass  in,  Sanitary!" 

In  such  cheer  it  struggled  on 
Till  the  battle  front  was  won: 
Then  the  car,  its  journey  done, 

Lo!  was  stationary! 
And  where  bullets  whistling  fly 
Came  the  sadder,  fainter  cry, 
"Help  us,  brothers,  ere  we  die — 

Save  us,  Sanitary!" 
159 


YESTERDAYS 

Such  the  work.  The  phantom  flies 
Wrapped  in  battle-clouds  that  rise; 
But  the  brave — whose  dying  eyes, 

Veiled  and  visionary, 
See  the  jasper  gates  swung  wide, 
See  the  parted  throng  outside — 
Hear  the  voice  to  those  who  ride: 

"Pass  in,  Sanitary!" 

The  big  Sanitary  Fair  was  organized  and  carried 
on  by  the  women  of  New  York,  headed  by  the 
one  woman  who  was  chosen  as  being  equal  to 
the  greatest  efforts  and  never  failing  in  the 
smallest.  Perhaps  the  large  souls  who  help  the 
world  at  varying  intervals  repeat,  in  different 
impersonations  and  at  different  periods  of  time, 
their  experiences  of  teaching  and  leading  and 
saving;  and  men  who  have  the  stamp  of  world- 
helpfulness  in  our  own  times  are  the  reincar- 
nation of  those  who  have  been  sent  out  through 
all  the  ages  for  the  healing  of  the  nations. 
The  great  soul  which  led  the  hosts  of  Israel  as 
Moses,  may  it  not  have  come  down  through  the 
ages,  using  his  garnered  wisdom  and  greatness  of 
courage  in  reanimating  the  spirit  of  a  Lincoln? 

It  was  during  what  was  called  the  period  of 
Reconstruction  that  I  became  vividly  conscious 
of  the  meaning  and  effect  of  the  war.  When  the 
appointment  of  a  Northern  Governor  for  Vir- 
ginia was  made  I  was  in  Washington  with  my 
husband,  and  we  were  included  in  the  party 
which  accompanied  the  new  Governor  to  Rich- 
160 


THE   CIVIL   WAR    PERIOD 

mond.  It  was  made  up  of  curious  elements. 
I  remember  that  Pierpont,  the  poet,  was  one, 
since  he  was  the  uncle  of  the  new  Governor; 
an  ancient  man  he  seemed  to  me,  severe  and 
Puritan-like. 

Then  there  was  "Jim  Lane,"  a  Kansas  poli- 
tician and  a  man  of  mark.  I  remember  a  horrible 
story  he  told  of  "shortening  the  ears  off  a  man" 
as  a  preliminary  punishment  for  the  guerrilla  war- 
fare in  which  he  had  been  engaged.  We  had  sailed 
down  the  Potomac  from  Washington,  and  it  hap- 
pened that  "Jim  Lane"  was  in  the  carriage 
which  was  detailed  to  convey  us  to  the  hotel  in 
Richmond.  It  was  like  driving  through  the 
streets  of  a  dead  city,  every  house  closed,  every 
window-blind  and  door  shut,  no  human  being, 
man,  woman  or  child  with  a  white  face  to  be 
seen;  but  groups  of  darkies,  gathered  in  front 
of  a  public-house  or  on  a  corner,  stood  gazing 
at  us.  It  was  like  an  intensified  funeral;  no 
one  could  help  being  solemn  and  depressed,  ex- 
cept the  gray-suited,  sombreroed  man  who  sat  in 
our  carriage  with  clenched  fists  and  shook  them 
at  the  closed  houses,  muttering:  "D —  them! 
D —  them!"  There  was  an  intensity  of  hate  in 
the  utterance  which  was  far  more  personal  than 
sectional. 

The  hotel  to  which  we  went  had  been  a  flourish- 
ing and  celebrated  one;  now  it  was  the  forlornest 
house  of  entertainment  which  could  be  imagined, 
11  161 


YESTERDAYS 

eaten  to  pieces  by  rats  and  shaken  to  pieces  by 
the  elements ;  yet  there  were  indications  of  former 
magnificence  in  bits  of  gilding  and  broken  carv- 
ings on  window-  and  door-casings. 

The  Governor  himself  and  his  family  were  for- 
tunate in  being  quartered  in  a  private  house 
which  was  in  comparatively  good  repair,  but  we 
others  had  a  taste  of  the  ravages  and  turbulence 
of  war.  There  were  enough  people  to  fill  the 
hotel,  and  in  the  evenings  the  large,  shabby  par- 
lors had  quite  a  social  look  with  the  temporary 
union  of  Northern  men  and  Southern  friends. 
The  Southern  men  all  wore  Confederate  uniforms, 
in  some  cases  very  fresh  and  becoming  ones. 
There  was  one  man  whom  we  were  anxious  to 
meet,  the  son  of  General  Capers,  a  hospitable 
and  charming  four-mile  neighbor  of  ours  on  Long 
Island.  His  was  a  Southern  family,  and  in  that 
day  when  men  were  obliged  to  choose  between  the 
old  and  the  new,  or  the  past  and  the  present,  it 
was  natural  for  the  oldest  son,  just  graduated 
from  a  medical  school,  to  join  the  Southern  army. 
During  the  past  few  dreadful  years  his  father 
had  been  able  to  hear  little  of  him,  and  my  hus- 
band had  promised,  in  the  event  of  our  going  to 
Richmond,  to  try  and  hunt  him  up.  But  how  to 
get  hold  of  any  one  in  the  Southern  army  when 
the  social  fence  was  so  high  and  so  close  between 
Northern  and  Southern  people  as  we  found  it  to 
be  in  Richmond!  They  could  step  over  from  the 
162 


THE    CIVIL   WAR    PERIOD 

other  side  if  they  wished,  but  from  our  side  the 
ascent  was  perpendicular,  and  all  our  efforts  were 
unavailing. 

There  was  a  pretty  girl  whom  I  had  seen  about 
the  halls,  a  daughter  of  the  proprietor,  but  her 
attitude  was  so  determinedly  hostile  that  it  was 
impossible  to  approach  her.  One  morning,  how- 
ever, in  passing  through  the  hall,  I  saw  her  in  a 
corner  of  the  small  balcony  on  the  court,  talking 
with  a  young  officer  in  Confederate  uniform,  and 
here  was  my  opportunity.  I  stepped  boldly  for- 
ward and  spoke  to  him.  The  girl  turned  her  back, 
but  the  boy  was  civil,  although  embarrassed.  He 
could  not  forget  his  good  Southern  manners  in 
spite  of  the  girl's  hostility. 

"Can  you  tell  me  whether  Doctor  Le  Grand 
Capers  is  at  the  arrny  station  at  Richmond?"  I 
asked. 

The  boy  thought  he  was,  and  then  with  an 
impulse  of  Southern  politeness  added  that  he 
would  find  out  for  me. 

"If  he  is,"  said  I,  "will  you  get  this  card  to 
him,  and  say  that  his  father  is  most  anxious  that 
we  shall  see  him?" 

The  embarrassment  and  stiffness  had  passed 
quite  away  in  spite  of  the  girl,  whose  trim  little 
back  seemed  to  grow  more  hostile  and  repellent 
every  moment.  I  hurried  to  remove  myself  and 
left  the  two  young  things  to  make  up,  as  I  was 
sure  they  would  from  the  look  of  things,  and  in 
163 


YESTERDAYS 

the  evening  our  friend  appeared  instinct  with  the 
true  Capers  cordiality,  and  handsome  and  attrac- 
tive in  his  gray  uniform.  After  a  little  talk  to- 
gether my  husband  put  a  finger  on  the  gold  braid 
of  the  sleeve,  saying: 

"What  is  the  good  of  this  now,  Le  Grand?" 

"Why,  Mr.  Wheeler,"  said  he,  "there  is  not  a 
house  in  Richmond  which  would  be  open  to  me 
without  it!"  And  the  men  sighed  as  they  faced 
each  other,  elbowing  an  insurmountable  fact. 

It  was  good  to  see  that  he  was  alive,  and  could 
be  gay  in  spite  of  the  gruesome  experiences  back 
of  him.  His  grandfather,  Bishop  Capers,  had 
been  a  power  in  the  South,  and  I  had  visited  his 
cousin  in  Charleston  before  the  war,  and  gone 
with  her  to  visit  the  graves  of  her  parents  in  the 
cemetery,  with  that  of  the  old  family  nurse  lying 
across  the  foot  of  them. 

I  remember  that  when  I  saw  it  I  wondered 
whether  in  all  the  broad  North  there  was  such 
an  instance  of  affection  between  the  servant 
and  the  served,  a  love  which  would  last  until 
death,  and  after.  How  well  I  remember  that 
first  visit  in  a  Southern  home!  The  experi- 
ence of  it  was  so  novel!  The  sight  of  camellias 
blossoming  in  winter,  the  charming  balconied 
houses,  and  my  husband's  low  recital  of  his  visit  to 
the  slave-market,  where  an  old,  kind-looking 
colored  woman  on  the  block,  whom  no  one  would 
t>id  for,  caught  his  eye  and  called  to  him ; 
164 


THE   CIVIL   WAR    PERIOD 

"Buy  me,  Massa.  I'se  a  good  ole  woman!  I 
can  cook  fine!  Buy  me,  Massa!" 

And  my  dear  man  choked  as  he  told  the  story. 
Truly,  I  thought,  there  were  less  peaceful  and 
enviable  experiences  in  slavery  than  that  of  lying 
at  the  feet  of  beloved  masters  and  mistresses  in 
the  old  gray  cemetery. 

I  remember  walking  with  my  hostess  in  the 
streets  one  day,  and  meeting  an  old  colored  woman 
trudging  barefooted  and  somewhat  painfully 
along,  carrying  a  large  new  pair  of  shoes,  which 
dangled  from  her  hand  as  she  walked.  My  hostess 
stopped. 

"Why  do  you  not  put  on  your  shoes,  Aunty?" 
said  she.  "They  will  save  your  feet." 

The  old  thing  grinned.  "Foot  belong  to  Massa; 
shoes  belong  to  me!"  she  countered,  and  faced  us 
with  an  indescribably  knowing  air. 


There  was  one  thing  in  Richmond  which  touched 
me  greatly.  After  that  first  day  we  began  to  see 
women  in  the  streets  going  to  and  from  the  markets 
and  to  neighbors',  every  one  in  black,  every 
woman  and  every  child  in  the  deepest,  deepest 
mourning.  I  have  often  thought  of  it  since,  and, 
curiously  enough,  its  sadness  matches  itself  in 
my  mind  with  the  fun  of  that  inimitable  story 
of  Ruth  McEnery  Stuart,  which  she  calls  "Mo- 
riah's  Mourning,"  a  story  of  the  darky  widow  who, 
165 


YESTERDAYS 

in  the  depth  of  her  sorrow  for  the  death  of  her 
husband,  dyes  even  her  underclothes  black,  ex- 
plaining, "When  I  mo'n  I  mo'n!"  Dear  Mrs. 
Stuart!  herself  a  Southern  woman,  and  for  the 
last  twenty  years  one  of  my  dearest  friends, 
knowing  negro  nature  as  one  knows  the  large 
letters  printed  in  children's  books.  Who  but 
she  could  have  imagined  that  story! 

General  Devon  was  in  charge  of  the  Northern 
army  station  at  Richmond,  and  of  course  our 
party  were  escorted  everywhere  by  him  and  his 
aides.  I  remember  one  day  when  we  visited  the 
battle-ground  of  "Seven  Oaks."  What  had  been 
a  fine  plantation  before  the  war — pasture  and 
corn-field  and  cotton-field — was  still  strewn  with 
things  which  remained  after  the  long  battle — bones 
and  skulls  of  horses,  harness  and  saddles,  buckles 
and  straps,  bits  of  metal  and  leather,  lying  among 
and  half  hidden  by  a  growth  of  fine  wild  grass  in 
flower,  the  grass  which  we  know  as  red-top  in 
our  Northern  pastures.  It  covered  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  field,  and  its  blossoms  were 
red,  red  as  blood. 

On  the  far  edge  of  the  field  was  a  dilapidated 
farm-house  which  had  been  used  during  the  battle 
as  a  hospital,  and  it  made  me  shiver  when  one 
of  the  officers  said,  pointing  to  a  corner  of  the 
standing  fence,  "There  was  a  heap  of  legs  and 
arms  there  as  high  as  the  fence!"  Oh  dear!  Oh 
dear!  the  cost  of  human  strife!  We  went  back 
166 


THE    CIVIL    WAR    PERIOD 

from  Richmond  sadder  and  wiser  for  all  the  rest 
of  our  lives. 

When  we  returned  to  Washington  we  went, 
as  all  visitors  to  Washington  must  go,  if  they  wish 
to  see  people,  to  Willard's  Hotel.  It  happened 
that  the  room  given  us  was  one  of  a  long  suite 
of  connecting  apartments  on  the  second  floor. 
It  would  be  considered  now  very  inadequate  ac- 
commodations, for  the  first  hotel  in  the  land,  to 
have  one's  lodgment  confined  to  one  square  room, 
with  big  street  windows  in  front,  and  heavy, 
large  folding-doors  at  each  end  communicating 
with  other  rooms  of  the  same  size,  all  of  which 
could  be  opened  on  occasions  to  make  a  long 
parallelogram  of  space  for  a  ball  or  assembly- 
room.  There  was  neither  bath-  nor  dressing- 
room,  just  one  square  space,  with  one  wide  bed, 
and  wash-stand  and  bureau  and  chairs.  Were 
we  less  clean  in  those  days  without  bath-rooms, 
I  wonder?  I  do  not  know.  I  only  know  that  no 
one  would  go  to  a  hotel  in  these  days  which  could 
not  furnish  something  nearer  the  privacy  and 
convenience  of  a  home.  Yet  the  hotels  of  those 
days  were  crowded,  and  they  were  talked  of  as 
"palatial." 

Of  course  Washington  was  full.  The  war  was 
at  an  end  and  the  capital  was  the  center  of  ac- 
tivity. Everybody  was  there  who  had  anything 
to  do  with  public  affairs,  and  it  happened  that 
the  very  next  room  to  us  on  one  side  was  occupied 
167 


YESTERDAYS 

by  General  and  Mrs.  Grant.  I  am  sure  they  had 
but  the  one  room,  and  every  kind  of  business 
had  to  go  on  in  it,  public  as  well  as  private. 
Once  as  I  passed  along  the  corridor  Mrs.  Grant  was 
interviewing  a  maid  at  the  door  with  a  hair-brush 
in  her  hand  and  hair  hanging  about  her  face,  and 
within  the  next  few  hours  the  wives  of  members 
of  the  Cabinet  were  calling  at  the  same  room.  It 
was  all  very  democratic,  but  looked  at  from  the 
official  point  of  view  it  was  also  very  unconven- 
tional. If  the  guests  were  seated  near  the  con- 
necting folding-doors,  the  occupant  of  the  ad- 
joining room  could  not  help  being  present,  so 
far  as  hearing  was  concerned;  and  I  remember 
being  greatly  amused  at  a  lesson  Mrs.  Grant  re- 
ceived from  some  confidential  visitor,  less  new  to 
the  Washington  world  and  therefore  in  a  position 
to  impart  information.  The  question  was  what 
Mrs.  Grant's  position  as  the  wife  of  the  com- 
mander-in-chief  would  require  in  the  way  of  dress, 
and  among  other  things  India  shawls  were  men- 
tioned. What  kind  of  shawls  were  India  shawls? 
Mrs.  Grant  asked,  and  she  was  forthwith  enlight- 
ened as  to  their  origin  and  qualities.  It  appeared 
that  a  shawl  might  be  solid  in  color,  or  else  have 
a  border  with  a  Cashmere  center.  The  shawls 
were  a  fruitful  topic;  their  necessity  and  value 
made  them  very  interesting  to  any  woman,  and 
I  could  not  help  remembering  the  conversation 
when,  two  years  afterward,  we  were  in  Dubuque 
1 68 


THE    CIVIL   WAR    PERIOD 

just  at  the  time  of  Grant's  nomination  for  Presi- 
dent. Mr.  Wheeler's  nephew  being  then  private 
secretary  of  the  General,  we  were  asked  to  tea,  not 
five-o'clock  tea,  but  the  evening  meal  of  the  family. 
Mrs.  Grant  took  me  up-stairs  to  take  off  my 
hat  and  shawl,  for  women  wore  shawls  and  not 
coats  in  those  days,  and  mine  seemed  to  attract 
her  attention.  Was  it  an  India  shawl?  she  asked, 
and  I  smiled  to  myself  conceitedly,  conscious  of 
its  value  and  of  the  fact  that  she  had  not  yet 
learned  to  know  an  India  shawl  by  sight.  She 
was  very  communicative  and  unconventional,  and 
I  was  delighted  when,  d  propos  of  the  care  of 
children,  she  told  me  that  she  always  "made 
Ulyss'  walk  with  the  baby  if  it  cried  after  twelve 
at  night."  He  looked  as  if  he  would  willingly  do 
it,  I  thought,  as  I  saw  him  with  his  arm  around 
his  eldest  little  boy,  his  chin  resting  upon  the  boy's 
head,  as  we  still  sat  at  the  table  after  supper. 
He  was  not  talkative  and  had  the  air  of  being 
shy,  as  I  think  he  was;  but  there  was  an  eager, 
half-concealed  interest  in  his  manner  as  Mr. 
Wheeler  and  his  nephew  discussed  the  political 
situation.  Altogether  I  liked  him  when  I  could 
consciously  separate  the  man  from  the  general- 
in-chief  who  had  sat  furiously  whittling  a  piece 
of  willow  at  the  door  of  his  tent  between  giving 
orders  for  the  advance  to  certain  death  of  thou- 
sands of  marching  men,  every  one  of  them  as  real 
and  living  at  the  moment  as  he  himself. 
169 


YESTERDAYS 

"But  he  could  do  it!"  I  thought,  as  I  looked  at 
him,  and  he  could  also  "walk  the  baby."  It  was 
a  curious  inside  glimpse  into  the  life  of  a  man  who 
at  that  moment  was  in  the  eye  of  the  world. 
He  was  a  strong  piece  on  the  chessboard  of  life, 
and  yet  he  was  being  moved  by  the  finger  of  fate 
as  easily  as  the  unimportant  pawns. 

At  last  the  dreadful  Civil  War  was  over  and 
the  actors  in  it  were  gathered  together  in  Wash- 
ington before  being  finally  scattered  to  their  vari- 
ous places  in  the  great  Republic,  whose  grievous 
rents  must  be  patched  together  by  the  same  hands 
which  had  made  them.  It  was  a  sorry  time,  and 
yet  a  great  one.  All  of  those  whose  names, 
during  the  years  of  the  conflict,  had  been  hung 
high  in  air  before  the  eyes  of  our  world  were 
there  as  real  men.  They  were  no  longer  remote, 
like  aeronauts  fighting  in  the  sky,  but  men  to  be 
seen  and  felt  and  noted  and  perhaps  criticized. 

The  great  review  was  on.  We  spent  days  of  it 
in  one  of  the  numerous  low  balconies  of  Willard's 
Hotel,  while  the  hosts  marched  just  below  us, 
almost  within  reach.  One  after  another  the  great 
phalanxes  of  men,  yet  footsore  and  weary  from 
their  long  marches,  with  tattered  flags  flying  or 
hanging  limp  from  the  heavy  staves,  passed  by. 
And  there  were  the  generals,  every  one  of  them 
once  more  a  man  among  men,  sitting  their  horses 
in  calm  exaltation,  and  yet  with  the  memory  and 
experience  of  the  hell  of  war  just  behind  them. 
170 


THE   CIVIL   WAR    PERIOD 

They  had  marched  through  it,  leading  their  for- 
lorn hosts,  and  here  they  were  still  leading  them, 
but  under  the  eyes  of  cheering  multitudes,  past 
the  platform  where  sat  the  assembled  force  of 
government,  through  the  dusty  sunshine  of  the 
streets  of  Washington.  How  eagerly  we  watched 
for  those  who  through  some  accident  or  meeting 
of  circumstances  had  been  more  widely  blazoned 
than  the  others.  On  the  last  day  came  Custer,  a 
figure  of  romance,  riding  like  a  troubadour,  a 
wide  wreath  of  roses  low  down  on  the  shoulders  of 
his  sorrel  horse,  smiling,  gay,  and  elated  by  the 
salvos  of  applause  which  greeted  him  as  he  came 
into  view.  And  his  men,  too,  smiled  at  the 
tribute,  smiled  and  drew  themselves  more  straight- 
ly.  Just  then  a  dramatic  thing  happened.  Sheri- 
dan stepped  out  into  our  balcony  with  a  little 
group  of  friends,  a  rather  short,  rather  full,  quite 
unchallenging  embodiment  of  almost  early  man- 
hood. My  husband  had  hardly  whispered  to  me, 
''That's  Sheridan,"  when  the  crowded  bodies  of 
onlookers  recognized  him.  Then  such  a  human 
roar!  "Custer!  Sheridan!"  the  very  air  seemed 
to  join  in  the  cry  and  carry  it  up  and  around.  It 
was  curious  to  see  the  two  men  under  this  fire 
of  human  recognition.  Sheridan  went  red  to  his 
finger-tips  and  the  edges  of  his  close-cut  hair. 
He  saluted  and  bowed  and  looked  immeasurably 
uncomfortable,  and  still  came  the  roar,  "Sheri- 
dan! Sheridan!" 

171 


YESTERDAYS 

But  Custer  was  visibly  delighted.  He  also 
saluted  and  bowed  and  laughed  gaily  while  the 
other  man  winced.  One  man  had  been  touched 
upon  a  responding  key,  while  the  other  shrank 
from  the  touch  as  if  it  were  pain.  There  had  been 
a  different  look  on  his  face,  I  fancy,  when  he 
"rode  from  Winchester  down  to  save  the  day." 
When  he 

Dashed  down  the  line  in  a  storm  of  applause, 

And  the  wave  of  retreat  checked  its  course  there,  because — 

The  voice  of  the  master  compelled  it  to  pause. 

His  soul  had  responded  to  that  applause,  how- 
ever much  it  shrank  from  this. 

Handsome,  gallant  Custer!  As  I  looked  at  him 
in  that  great  review,  my  inner  sense  had  no 
prophecy  of  the  future  in  which  I  should  sit  day 
after  day  and  month  after  month  beside  his  dear 
girlish  widow,  and  our  hearts  should  go  out  to- 
gether over  the  wants  and  needs  of  our  little 
sisters-of- the- world. 

How  magnificently  this  army  of  the  West 
tramped  by!  The  sides  of  the  streets  were  filled 
as  they  went,  not  only  with  civilians  who  had 
come  from  everywhere  to  see  the  final  review, 
but  with  disbanded  soldiers  of  the  Eastern  army 
which  had  been  reviewed  on  preceding  days. 
These  last  were  drawn  from  all  the  varied  na- 
tionalities which  crowd  our  Eastern  cities — newly 
come  Irish  and  Germans,  and  men  of  all  coun- 
172 


THE    CIVIL    WAR    PERIOD 

tries  who  had  failed  to  get  the  immediate  and 
lucrative  "job"  for  which  they  had  crossed  the 
sea  and  who  had  been  tempted  into  the  immediate 
relief  of  the  ranks.  On  the  other  hand,  the  long- 
limbed  Western  men — "corn-fed  men,"  my  hus- 
band called  them — were  far  more  uniform  in 
physical  development  and  apparently  inches  taller 
than  those  of  the  Eastern  army.  As  they  went 
surging  by  with  long,  even  footsteps,  a  German- 
looking  soldier  was  lounging  against  our  balcony, 
evidently  one  of  the  Eastern  troops  which  had 
been  previously  reviewed.  His  look  met  that  of 
my  husband,  whose  irrepressible  pride  in  the  mag- 
nificent bodily  and  mental  swing  of  these  men 
called  for  sympathy. 

"Those  men  can't  march,  can  they?"  he  said, 
jocosely,  to  the  soldier. 

The  man  took  him  literally.  ' '  Nein, ' '  he  drawled . 
"Can't  do  not 'in'  but  fight." 

But  they  could  do  both,  bless  them!  The  one 
for  themselves,  and  the  other  for  their  country. 

In  the  evenings  of  the  days  of  the  Great  Re- 
view the  parlors  of  the  hotel  were  filled  with 
officers  meeting  and  greeting  long-separated  friends 
and  new-found  acquaintances;  and  in  one  of  the 
large  parlors  Sherman,  back  from  his  long  march 
to  the  sea,  held  a  general  reception.  It  was  an 
opportunity  to  look  closely  at  the  man  and  feel 
the  very  flesh  of  him  as  you  took  his  hand.  He 
looked  as  he  should,  tall  and  thin  and  forceful 


YESTERDAYS 

and  thoughtful,  a  brave  and  careful  and  prudent 
leader  of  a  conquering  army  through  the  heart  of 
a  hostile  and  despairing  country,  which,  though 
hostile,  was  our  very  own.  So  might  a  great  sur- 
geon look  who,  in  saving  the  whole  of  a  precious 
body  from  death,  was  yet  compelled  to  destroy 
something  very  intimate  to  life. 

On  Sunday  we  went  to  church  and  were  put 
into  a  pew  directly  behind  that  of  the  Lee  family. 
I  think  our  Confederate  friend,  Le  Grand  Capers, 
had  something  to  do  with  it,  for  I  cannot  imagine 
mere  chance  so  befriending  us.  But  before  we 
had  realized  it  General  Lee  stood  before  the  door 
of  the  pew,  holding  it  open  for  the  family  to  pass 
in,  and  the  sight  of  him  sent  a  lump  into  my 
throat.  His  was  such  a  noble  personality!  It 
seemed  as  if  the  greatness  and  patience  and  ac- 
ceptance of  defeat,  refined  by  fire,  shone  by  their 
own  light  through  the  image  of  the  man.  It  was 
one  of  the  noblest  and  saddest  of  faces — so  sad, 
indeed,  that  it  seemed  unworthy  to  take  note  of  it. 
But  I  should  have  liked  to  touch  him. 


VII 

GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

AFTER  our  first  winter  in  our  New  York 
**  home  we  planned  to  spend  the  next  abroad, 
taking  the  whole  family  with  us  and  leaving  two 
of  the  children  at  school  in  Germany  while  we 
elders  wandered  over  the  Old  World,  finishing 
part  of  the  winter  in  Rome. 

This  was  soon  after  the  Civil  War,  and  we  had 
heard  so  many  accounts  of  the  unpopularity  of 
Northern  people  in  England  that,  in  spite  of  the 
natural  and  inherited  lure  of  England,  we  avoided 
it  by  going  directly  to  Germany.  To  the  average 
American  of  my  generation  "going  abroad"  meant 
going  first  of  all  to  England.  We  had  been  stuffed 
with  English  history  as  children,  and  consequently 
the  history  of  England  ranked  only  second  to  that 
of  our  own  country.  American,  Roman,  and  Eng- 
lish history  seemed  to  be  all  important,  while  that 
of  Germany  and  France  cut  a  rather  insignificant 
figure  in  the  life  of  nations. 

My  husband  had  influential  German  acquaint- 
ances among  his  business  associates,  so  we  crossed 


YESTERDAYS 

in  the  Deutschland,  a  ship  of  the  North  German 
line,  fortified  with  letters  to  the  captain,  social 
documents  which  insured  us  the  little  alleviations 
possible  to  a  sea  voyage. 

It  was  the  beginning  of  a  good  deal  of  after- 
intimacy  with  German  society,  for  one  of  our 
fellow-passengers  was  a  man  of  large  affairs  in 
Bremen  and  was  returning  home  after  negoti- 
ating important  interests  in  America. 

At  the  last  moment,  just  as  we  were  leaving  the 
dock,  a  letter  had  been  handed  to  Mr.  Wheeler, 
introducing  him  to  Mr.  Johann  Schmidt,  of 
Bremen,  as  a  fellow-passenger.  As  a  family,  we 
seemed  to  suit  this  traveler,  longing  for  his  own 
home  circle.  My  husband  talked  ships  and  ship- 
ping, which  were  cardinal  interests  with  him, 
while  I  lured  him  into  long  talks  about  Bremen 
and  came  upon  the  fact  that  his  father  was  a 
former  burgomaster  and  still  stood  in  marble  maj- 
esty in  the  Stadthaus.  Our  elder  daughter  won 
his  heart  by  dexterously  mending  some  splits  in 
his  sea-going  gloves,  our  four-year-old  youngest 
baby  had  childhood  and  beauty  to  offer  to  a  home- 
sick father,  our  eleven-year-old  boy  commended 
himself  by  being  a  candidate  for  a  German  board- 
ing-school, while  Dora  had  numerous  wiles  where- 
with to  beguile;  altogether  he  seemed  to  find  the 
interest  of  varying  humanity  in  us  as  we  did  in 
him. 

When  we  reached  Bremen  we  found  ourselves 
176 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

friends  not  only  of  the  Schmidt  family,  but  of  a 
large  circle  of  their  friends,  and  we  were  included 
in  all  the  welcoming  festivities  of  the  occasion. 
They  were  very  sane  festivities,  consisting  mostly 
of  family  dinners  in  the  prosperous  mercantile  set 
into  which  we  had  fallen.  The  hosts  invariably 
were  relatives  of  past  or  present  burgomasters, 
and  each  house  had  a  dining-room  which  must 
have  been  built  for  great  civic  functions  and 
remained  unaltered  to  dignify  such  social  and 
domestic  occasions  as  the  home-coming  of  our 
friend.  The  long  table  down  the  center  of  these 
rooms  would  seat  fifty  guests,  perhaps  more,  as 
the  impressive  rows  of  chairs  along  the  sides  of 
the  rooms  could  testify. 

At  first  it  was  rather  formidable  to  be  a  stranger 
guest  at  one  of  these  dinners,  for  there  were  little 
formalities  which  we  did  not  understand  and 
which  were  evidently  imperative;  but  as  every- 
body vied  in  explaining  them  and  seemed  to 
think  our  ignorance  of  them  great  fun,  we  were 
soon  initiated,  even  to  shaking  the  hand  of 
each  guest  in  turn  and  wishing  him  good  diges- 
tion (gesegneie  Mahlzeif).  Heaven  knows  they 
needed  it! 

The  pleasant  theater  and  opera  parties  which 
began  at  seven  and  to  which  the  German  ladies 
carried  their  knitting,  to  fill  in  the  time  between 
the  acts,  ended  at  nine;  then  home  to  a  glass  of 
beer  and  to  bed.  This  seemed  to  me  a  very 
12  177 


YESTERDAYS 

sensible  way  of  living.  Indeed,  there  was  a  cer- 
tain sanity  and  restfulness  in  the  social  life  which 
gave  one  quite  a  different  idea  of  amusements, 
while  the  novelty  of  it  all  saved  it  from  degener- 
ating into  dullness. 

When  our  friend  Frau  Schmidt  took  us  to  the 
Bremen  shops,  it  was  always  interesting  and 
amusing  to  see  her  surprise  at  my  paying  bills 
without  first  submitting  them  to  my  husband  and 
getting  his  sanction. 

"But  he  does  not  want  to  know  about  it,"  I 
would  explain. 

"Not  when  it  amounts  to  twenty  dollars?" 
our  friend  would  ask,  incredulously. 

When  I  made  myself  a  bonnet  because  I  could 
not  find  one  in  the  shops  that  would  answer  the 
purpose,  it  was  a  seven  days'  wonder.  Nearly 
every  Frau  of  our  new  acquaintance  came  to  see 
it,  and  some  even  brought  their  husbands,  who 
seemed  equally  interested. 

"Could  you  make  one  like  that?"  a  bachelor 
brother  of  one  of  our  friends  asked  my  daughter. 

"Why  not?"  said  she.  "I  always  make  my 
own." 

11  Hen  Gott!"  said  he,  and  his  admiration  was 
so  evidently  stimulated  by  this  unusual  talent 
that  we  decided  to  leave  Bremen  before  it  cul- 
minated in  a  difficult  situation. 

My  husband  had  taken  our  boy  to  Halber- 
stadt,  to  a  school  strongly  recommended  by  Heir 
178 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

Schmidt,  and  left  him,  not  without  misgivings 
as  to  how  the  boy  would  fit  the  circumstances, 
or  the  circumstances  fit  the  boy.  These  misgivings 
came  to  light,  one  after  another,  in  moments  of 
confidence;  and  I  comforted  the  anxious  father 
by  saying  that  perhaps,  after  all,  it  might  be 
good  for  the  boy  to  have  to  do  things  he  did  not 
like  and  that  he  never  would  get  such  experiences 
at  home. 

We  were  to  leave  Dora  in  Wiesbaden  with  Ger- 
man sisters  who  had  had  under  their  care  for 
several  years  the  daughters  of  New  York  friends. 
Consequently  we  were  quite  comfortable  about 
leaving  her.  Still  it  was  hard  to  separate  the 
family,  even  for  the  prospective  advantage  of  the 
young  people,  but  we  might  have  spared  our 
regrets  at  the  first  break  in  the  family  circle  if 
we  had  foreseen  the  sudden  appearance  at  our 
table  in  Wiesbaden,  where  we  had  been  settled 
for  a  fortnight,  of  a  boy  about  the  age  of  our 
boy,  who  looked  like  our  boy  and  who  was  our 
boy. 

"Why,  Jim,"  exclaimed  his  father,  "where  did 
you  come  from?" 

"Halberstadt,"  said  he,  grinning  so  ingrati- 
atingly that  I  could  have  hugged  him. 

"But  how  did  you  get  here?" 

"Why,  I  came  on  the  train,  Father!" 

"Did  Heir  Meyer  send  you?" 

"No;  I  came  by  myself." 
179 


YESTERDAYS 

"But  you  had  no  money!" 

"Yes,  I  had.  You  know  you  gave  me  a  dollar, 
and  I  found  out  how  far  that  would  bring  me,  and 
I  came.' 

"And  after  that?" 

"Well,  I'll  tell  you,  Father.  There  was  a  nice 
American  man  in  the  car,  and  I  sat  in  the  seat 
with  him  because  I  thought  he  would  talk  Eng- 
lish. I  told  him  my  father  was  at  Wiesbaden, 
and  that  I  had  left  school  at  Halberstadt  because 
I  didn't  like  it  and  was  going  to  him,  and  that  I 
had  no  more  money  but  five  cents ;  I  said  that 
if  he  would  buy  me  a  ticket  you  would  pay  him. 
He  was  a  real  nice  man,  and  he  bought  me  a 
ticket  and  paid  for  my  dinner,  and  when  we  came 
to  Wiesbaden  he  shook  hands  and  laughed  and 
told  me  to  give  you  this  card.  He  said  he  thought 
you  and  Mother  would  be  glad  to  see  me." 

We  gave  him  his  supper  and  I  put  him  in  bed, 
with  motherly  yearning;  then  we  looked  at  each 
other. 

"I  wonder  what  he  will  do  next,"  said  I. 

"I  must  go  and  send  a  check  to  that  nice 
American  man,"  said  Father. 

"Well,  thank  him  for  me.  What  would  have 
happened  to  the  boy  if  he  had  not  been  on  the 
train?" 

"Oh,  he  would  have  experienced  a  taste  of  the 
German  discipline  you  think  he  needs";  and  he 
smiled  at  me  jeeringly. 

1 80 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

The  next  morning  after  breakfast  father  and 
son  went  for  a  walk,  and  came  back  confident  and 
radiant. 

"Father  and  I  are  going  to  Halberstadt  to- 
night," said  the  boy,  "and,  Mother,  I  am  going 
to  learn  German  just  as  quick  as  I  can,  so  I  can 
tell  the  boys  all  my  adventures  and  about  Amer- 
ican Indians.  I'll  bet  they  don't  know  a  thing 
about  them." 

The  father  nodded.  "Yes,"  said  he,  "you  had 
better  go  and  buy  him  some  handkerchiefs  and 
things  he  forgot.  I  can  make  it  right  with  Herr 
Meyer." 

At  Wiesbaden  we  met  our  first  ideal  specimen 
in  the  person  of  the  Duke  of  Nassau,  so  much  of 
a  personage  in  the  minds  of  the  city  citizens  that 
we  went  to  Biberich  on  the  Rhine  to  see  his  sur- 
roundings and  possessions  and  get  an  all-round 
view  of  the  new  species.  But,  being  familiar  with 
the  idea  of  interminable  ranches  and  ranges  and 
great  tracts  of  land  personally  owned  by  simple 
citizens,  I  fear  we  were  not  properly  awed  by  the 
simplicity  of  comparatively  large  spaces  sacred 
to  semi-royalty.  His  personal  presence  was  rather 
impressive,  sitting  alone,  in  stately  and  solitary- 
dignity,  in  a  carriage  attended  by  much  decorated 
menials.  Just  here  (southern  Georgia)  and  now 
(the  year  of  our  Lord  1918),  on  looking  back  at 
our  German  duke,  after  a  lifelong  experience  of 
the  values  of  human  possessions,  I  feel  that  I 
181 


YESTERDAYS 

should  like  to  throw  an  invisible  net  over  the 
semi-royal  ghost,  his  horses  and  his  menials; 
then  wind  them  up  and  set  them  going  on  some  of 
the  beautiful  plantation  roads  stretching  through 
the  "piney  woods"  and  flowering  thickets,  or 
along  the  ordered  wildness  and  through  the  mys- 
tery and  magic  of  half-tropical  vistas  for  un- 
measured miles.  He  would  be  fond  of  them  all, 
my  specter  duke.  Magnolias  would  drop  their 
fragrance  upon  him  and  dream-lilies  would  send 
up  their  spirals  of  unseeable  greeting ;  crape  myrtle 
would  smile  and  dogwood  would  wave  its  silver- 
spotted  robes  for  him,  until,  reflecting  that  all  these 
beautiful  and  rare  things  belong  to  untitled  people, 
he  might  lose  the  sense  of  being  set  apart  from 
the  sons  of  men  and  might  realize  that  all  are 
indeed  the  sons  of  God.  Still  I  must  remember 
that  he  shared  the  most  beautiful  and  perhaps  the 
most  precious  of  his  possessions  with  the  world. 
Any  one  might  go  and  pay  his  or  her  respects 
to  his  lovely  duchess,  asleep  in  marble  under  a 
roof  in  a  public  garden  of  Wiesbaden  where 
Thorwaldsen  had  left  her  dreaming. 

After  Wiesbaden  came  Munich,  which  had 
always  appealed  to  me  as  a  center  of  art.  It  was 
not  long  after  the  reign  of  that  interesting  old 
sinner,  Ludwig  I,  who  built  galleries  and  filled 
them  with  portraits  of  every  beautiful  girl  in 
Munich,  and  danced  his  frail  Lola  Montez  over  the 
heads  of  his  staid  citizens. 
182 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

I  went  to  see  his  gallery  of  beauties  and  thought 
of  the  row  of  pretty  Brooklyn  girls  I  had  seen  in 
earlier  days  ranged  along  the  seats  of  the  ferry- 
boats; I  decided  that  America  had  no  reason  to 
apologize  for  what  it  could  offer  in  the  line  of 
feminine  beauty.  However,  I  bought  photo- 
graphs of  one  or  two  who  were  really  beautiful, 
and  betook  myself  to  the  old  and  the  new  Pinako- 
thek  to  see  my  first  Rubens,  and  the  great  pictures 
of  that  and  earlier  days.  This  was  the  beginning 
of  my  real  knowledge  of  what  was  back  of  Amer- 
ican art,  for  the  Metropolitan  Museum  had  then 
hardly  begun  to  gather  its  treasures. 

On  several  of  my  journeys  to  and  from  the 
galleries  I  saw  the  young  King  Ludwig.  He  had 
a  beautiful  and  melancholy  face,  the  young  king, 
and  I  saluted  with  the  halting  crowd  and  stopped 
at  the  next  picture-shop  to  buy  his  photograph, 
in  spite  of  the  scoffing  of  my  dear  man,  who  could 
never  abide  my  admiration  of  masculine  beauty. 
There  was  not  only  beauty  in  the  face,  but  some- 
thing that  foreshadowed  the  tragic  end  of  his 
royal  life. 

One  of  our  letters  of  introduction  was  addressed 
to  a  family  in  Munich  whose  son  was  an  officer 
in  the  army  of  occupation  in  Venice.  He  was  at 
home  on  leave,  and  as  the  time  of  his  departure 
for  Venice  coincided  with  our  own,  he  proceeded 
to  look  us  calmly  over,  and  then  proposed  himself 
as  a  traveling  companion,  and — after  looking  him 
183 


YESTERDAYS 

over — we  accepted.  He  made  our  journey  easy 
and  pleasant,  giving  us  an  agreeable  taste  of  the 
power  of  a  military  uniform. 

When  we  reached  Venice,  and  while  he  went  in 
search  of  a  gondola,  another  young  man  appeared 
in  the  cloak  and  cap  of  an  American  officer,  with 
a  gondolier  in  attendance  and  with  every  indica- 
tion that  this  encounter  was  entirely  to  his  liking 
and  not  at  all  unexpected.  They  looked  at  each 
other,  these  two  young  men,  over  the  as  yet  un- 
claimed territory  of  girlhood,  neither  of  them  ap- 
parently too  much  pleased  at  the  meeting. 

But  this  certainly  added  to  the  attractions  of 
Venice,  for  against  military  escort  by  day  was 
matched  melodious  serenades  by  night  of  bands 
of  Venetian  singers  in  gondolas  moored  beneath 
our  balcony  at  the  Hotel  Danielli.  "Bella  Vene- 
tzia"  floated  up  to  us  in  musical  waves  and  se- 
quences of  many  other  entrancing  Italian  songs 
vanished  silently  into  the  singing  dark  of  the 
Venetian  nights. 

There  were  Titians  and  Titians  to  be  seen, 
and  the  glories  of  St.  Mark's  where  we  walked, 
my  dear  man  and  I,  around  the  wonderful  square 
behind  our  girl  and  the  young  American,  and  we 
were  more  tender  with  each  other  because  of 
them. 

From  Venice  we  went  to  Rome,  and  somewhere 
on  the  way  we  found,  on  our  return  from  a  tem- 
porary railroad  wait,  a  stout,  healthy,  black- 
184 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

eyed  American  youth  in  our  compartment,  amus- 
ing our  four-year-old  with  sleight-of-hand  per- 
formances and  vagaries  of  all  sorts — "circus 
tricks,"  he  called  them.  He  told  us  that  his  father 
and  mother  were  on  the  train  going  to  Florence. 
He  called  them  "the  old  folks"  and  said  they 
found  traveling  very  slow;  he  had  seen  our  party 
and  the  little  boy,  and  thought  it  might  be  amus- 
ing to  join  us.  The  boy  was  delighted  with  the 
tricksome  youth,  and  we  could  not  help  being 
amused  with  his  artless  recitals  of  his  own  ex- 
periences and  comments  on  the  Old  World. 

My  husband  led  him  on  to  a  recital  of  some  in- 
cidents of  his  life,  which  he  evidently  enjoyed — 
of  how  he  had  been  two  years  in  a  traveling  circus, 
after  having  worked  at  various  trades;  for  he 
"could  do  anything,"  he  said.  About  a  year  ago 
the  "old  man"  had  made  a  lot  of  money  out  of 
land,  selling  all  of  his  possessions  to  a  growing 
city,  and  before  they  settled  down  again  they  had 
decided  to  see  something  of  the  world.  As  he 
was  the  youngest  and  unmarried,  and  wiser  than 
the  father  and  mother  in  the  ways  of  the  world, 
he  had  come  to  take  care  of  them. 

Afterward  we  met  them  in  Florence,  where  the 
"old  man"  was  having  "likenesses  in  marble" 
made  of  himself  and  his  wife — seven  of  each, 
fourteen  in  all,  a  pair  for  each  of  the  seven  chil- 
dren. What  a  godsend  he  was  to  the  happy 
sculptor  who  made  the  "likenesses!"  and  what  a 
185 


YESTERDAYS 

dear  old  pair  they  were — two  babies  in  experience 
dropped  into  the  dust  of  the  oldest  of  civilizations ! 

At  last  we  were  in  Rome,  and  saw  ecclesiastical 
and  historic  pomp  and  power  for  the  first  time, 
good  old  Pio  Nono  in  his  white  robe  and  scarlet 
stockings  giving  his  benediction  as  he  was  carried 
around  St.  Peter's  in  his  elevated  chair  by  white- 
f rocked,  gold-embroidered  servitors.  How  he 
wavered  and  tilted  and  how  physically  troubled 
he  looked  during  the  performance! 

Afterward  we  had  a  nearer  and  more  human, 
although  a  second-hand,  glimpse  of  him,  when  a 
friend,  who  was  visiting  us  in  our  apartment  in 
the  Via  Babuino,  was  granted  a  private  audience. 
She  was  a  gorgeous  creature,  a  young  Baltimore 
widow,  whose  husband  had  fallen  during  the  Civil 
War.  She  had  oceans  of  money  and  a  keen  and 
subtle  instinct  for  its  use  without  ever  expending 
a  penny  of  it;  so  when  an  American  Archbishop 
gave  her  a  letter  "To  All  Catholic  Prelates,"  she 
proceeded  to  use  it  in  a  way  which  was  a  constant 
delight  to  us.  The  first  ecclesiastical  fortress  at- 
tacked was  Cardinal  Barnabo,  then  at  the  head 
of  the  body  of  Roman  prelates.  When  this  splen- 
did young  American  widow  was  presented  to  him, 
by  virtue  of  the  famous  letter,  a  private  audience 
with  the  Pope  was  immediately  arranged  for  her. 

To  fit  her  for  this  momentous  function  was  a 
matter  of  anxiety  to  the  entire  Wheeler  family, 
but  a  long-trained  black-velvet  gown  and  a 
186 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

shrouding  Spanish  veil  were  available,  and  so  she 
was  dressed  to  her  and  our  satisfaction,  and  finally 
drawn  off  in  a  small  open  carriage  looking  quite  like 
Queen  Boadicea  in  a  Roman  chariot.  We  laughed 
to  reflect  how  little  the  Church  would  profit  by 
its  unusual  extension  of  civility.  We  had  a  beau- 
tiful time  cross-examining  her  on  her  return,  as  to 
the  etiquette  of  the  function  and  the  speech  of 
the  august  head  of  the  Church.  My  husband, 
who  was  skilful  in  such  processes,  got  at  the  fact 
that  the  Holy  Father  had  expressed  a  hope  that  she 
would  soon  be  "enrolled  as  a  daughter  of  the 
Church." 

"What  did  you  say?"  asked  he. 

"That  my  heart  was  willing,  but  my  head  could 
not  accept  its  doctrines." 

"And  what  did  he  say?" 

It  was  difficult  to  obtain  an  exact  reply  to  this, 
but  it  seemed  that  the  "humility  of  a  charcoal- 
burner"  was  recommended  to  our  irresponsible 
friend,  who  was  quite  unconscious  of  the  fact 
that  she  had  matched  her  own  intelligence  against 
that  of  the  head  of  the  Church.  In  consequence 
of  this  audience  we  had  wonderful  priestly  visits 
and  opportunities  of  seeing  great  ecclesiastical 
functions.  Carriages  came  to  the  door  of  our 
apartment  whose  papal  magnificence  puffed  almost 
visibly  the  pride  of  our  entertaining  friend. 

But  she  left  Rome  for  Paris,  having  exhausted 
all  her  advantages,  without,  so  far  as  we  knew, 
187 


YESTERDAYS 

giving  more  than  interest  and  anticipation  in 
return. 

Charlotte  Cushman  was  at  the  time  established 
in  a  pleasant  house  on  the  Pincian  Hill,  where 
we  met  in  the  course  of  the  winter  all  that  was 
best  in  Roman,  English,  and  American  society. 

I  find  among  my  savings  of  that  winter  an 
old  playbill  of  a  little  play  at  her  house  arranged 
by  her  to  please  her  friends.  She  herself  was  not 
in  the  play,  but  acted  as  prompter,  and  after  it 
was  over  she  recited  in  a  way  that  sent  your  blood 
hurrying  through  your  veins.  How  the  thrills 
followed  one  another  as  she  repeated  Kingsley's 
"Mary,  Call  the  Cattle  Home";  and  what  a  real 
tangible  thing  the  "Drowned  Maiden's  Hair"  be- 
came as  her  strong,  deep  voice  gave  the  lines  of  it ! 

She  was  still  in  the  very  prime  of  life,  riding 
gaily  over  the  Campagna  to  the  fox-hunts  which 
had  been  established  by  English  residents,  know- 
ing old  Rome  to  its  core,  and  yet  interested  in  all 
it  could  show  of  the  newest  and  most  advanced 
in  art  or  literature.  She  seemed  to  me  then  a 
most  fortunate  and  happy  woman  who  had  made 
for  herself  an  enviable  place  in  the  world,  where 
she  was  ranged  as  a  peer  of  the  best  in  her  own 
art  and  consequently  on  a  level  with  the  princes 
of  intellectual  life. 

At  that  period  Crawford,  the  prominent  Boston 
sculptor,  was  not  living,  but  Mrs.  Crawford,  who 
was  then  Mrs.  Terry,  lived  and  entertained  in 
188 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

one  of  the  old  Roman  palaces  with  her  husband 
and  the  Crawford  children,  Francis  Marion  Craw- 
ford, who  afterward  made  Italian  life  and  char- 
acter so  familiar  to  us  all,  among  them. 

If  I  had  known  at  that  date  that  I  should  ever 
read  his  Italian  novels  with  such  a  satisfactory 
sense  of  being  (really)  in  Rome,  or  in  Italy,  and 
of  newly  understanding  Italian  nature,  I  should 
have  looked  more  carefully  at  the  face  of  the 
little  boy  whom  I  used  to  see  in  the  old  Roman 
palace.  He  was  just  "one  of  the  Crawford  chil- 
dren," and  how  could  one  know  that  the  spark 
of  creative  power  in  him  was  stronger  and  more 
alive  than  that  which  lives  in  most  of  us? 

It  seemed  to  me  a  great  mistake  that  his  mother 
should  be  called  "Mrs.  Terry."  If  I  were  a  legis- 
lator, I  should  decree  that  the  name  of  the  second 
husband  should  be  tied  to  that  of  the  first  with 
a  hyphen;  she  should  have  been  Mrs.  Crawford- 
Terry,  instead  of  having  to  perform  the  suttee 
of  Mr.  Crawford's  name. 

The  leader  of  the  Pope  s  choir  came  twice  a 
week  to  give  a  singing-lesson  to  our  girl,  and 
nothing  would  have  tempted  her  father  or  me 
to  miss  one  of  them.  In  the  first  place,  it  was 
curious  and  interesting  to  see  that  huge  bulk  of 
a  man,  in  his  long,  black  skirts,  standing  behind 
the  girl  at  the  piano,  with  her  cameo  face  and 
purely  American  look,  and  hear  the  two  voices 
making  long  smooth  cadences  together,  or  sing- 
189 


YESTERDAYS 

ing  mounting  scales  which  ran  up  step  by  step 
until  they  seemed  to  reach  the  very  topmost 
limit  of  sound. 

Once  he  gave  us  cards  to  a  sort  of  shut-in 
ecclesiastical  musical  function  at  the  Pantheon, 
the  music  being  given  by  his  own  choir.  The 
sound  of  it  seemed  to  fill  all  the  central  space  under 
the  dome.  They  sang  in  platoons  of  chanted 
melody,  rank  and  file,  rank  and  file  treading  the 
ordered  march  of  it  until  Mustapha's  high  voice 
(his  name  was  Mustapha)  would  seem  to  come 
dropping  down  from  the  sky,  through  the  open 
circle  in  the  roof,  and  hover  over  the  crowd  of 
musical  notes  below.  It  was  all  in  semi-darkness, 
for  the  great  space  of  the  Pantheon  was  unlit 
except  for  the  little  sparks  of  light  above  the 
written  notes.  No  music  that  I  have  ever  heard 
in  the  world  had  the  same  shrouded  and  yet 
voluminous  character.  It  was  like  the  singing 
of  an  army  of  musical  ghosts,  or  what  you  might 
fancy  that  would  be,  and  yet  thrilling  with  life. 

I  think  it  was  Miss  Cushman  who  told  us  of 
Mustapha,  and  his  teaching  certainly  added  a 
sort  of  silvery  smoothness  to  our  girl's  voice. 

It  is  a  real  culmination  of  married  life  and  love 
when  a  newly  grown  daughter  becomes  a  part  of 
it,  and  if  she  is  all  that  a  girl  may  be,  it  makes 
her  father  and  mother  very  desirable  people. 
Every  one  loves  beauty,  and  everybody  who  is  no 
longer  young  loves  youth  and  has  a  half-envious, 
190 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

half-tender  enjoyment  of  it  in  others.  It  is  what 
one  has  not  that  makes  the  eternal  quest,  and  that 
is  why  all  the  world  follows  youth.  When  we  travel 
we  cannot  take  with  us  our  houses  and  lands,  or 
even  the  places  we  have  earned,  but  if  youth  and 
beauty  are  with  us  we  do  not  need  them — our 
beautiful  young  grown-ups  are  the  open  sesame  to 
all  that  is  desirable. 

It  was  a  joy  to  do  everything  in  Rome — to  drive 
along  the  stony  Appian  Way  and  have  their  old 
Roman  inscriptions  translated  into  modern  Eng- 
lish by  the  father;  to  be  welcome  in  the  studios 
of  sculptors  and  painters  whose  names  were  known 
of  all  the  world;  to  really  talk  with  them;  to 
exchange  words  with  Story  and  Greenough  about 
their  own  art;  to  walk  on  the  Pincian  Hill  and 
see  the  red  sunsets  stream  through  the  ilex-trees 
and  crimson  the  waters  of  the  basin  of  the  foun- 
tain; to  gather  great  purple  anemones  on  the 
Campagna  in  the  shadows  of  the  marble  aque- 
ducts that  carried  water  to  the  Romans  of  a 
thousand  years  ago,  and  to  reflect  that  they  needed 
the  things  that  we  need,  and  thought  and  felt 
as  we  moderns  feel.  Luxurious  and  self -centered 
and  cruelly  selfish  as  those  large-necked  emperors 
were  whose  marble  heads  are  ranged  in  the  Capitol 
gallery,  they  still  inaugurated  and  carried  out 
great  "public  works,"  even  as  our  political  bosses 
of  Tammany  occasionally  do.  We  are  all  one, 
this  great  successive  army  of  mortals;  we  repeat 
191 


YESTERDAYS 

one  another  down  the  centuries.  I  say  this  to 
myself  between  my  comings  and  goings,  and  then 
fall  to  wondering  what  worthy  monuments  would 
be  left  for  the  eyes  of  posterity  if  New  York 
were  crumbled  into  dust;  thus  wondering,  I  think 
better  of  the  old  days  and  doings  of  the  Roman 
emperors. 

Our  last  days  in  Rome  were  enlivened  by  an 
experience  which  it  has  always  amused  me  to  re- 
member. 

The  padrona,  a  large  and  handsome  specimen 
of  the  genus,  had  let  the  comfortable  flat  in  the 
Via  Babueno  for  endless  years  and  had  accumu- 
lated a  fund  of  little  tricks  of  the  trade  which 
would  have  made  the  fortune  of  any  business. 

It  was  the  first  time  we  had  ever  taken  an 
apartment  in  a  foreign  city,  and  when  I  made  an 
appointment  with  Madame  to  look  over  the  fur- 
nishings I  found  everything  satisfactory.  There 
was  a  set  of  large  dinner-plates  upon  which  she 
laid  great  stress,  and  my  attention  was  persist- 
ently called  to  them.  They  were  old  and  large, 
but  not  sufficiently  beautiful  or  interesting  as 
ceramic  art  to  excite  enthusiasm.  However,  I 
accepted  them  at  her  valuation,  and,  finding  them 
considerably  chipped  and  cracked  and  evidently 
not  very  reliable,  had  them  placed  in  a  pile  at 
the  top  of  the  shelves  which  answered  for  a  side- 
board, where  they  remained  during  our  stay. 

When  we  were  ready  to  flit,  and  were  going 
192 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

over  the  inventory  of  furniture  together,  the 
padrona  and  I,  marking  off  and  valuing  the  dam- 
age of  usage,  we  came  in  time  to  the  set  of  dinner- 
plates,  which  I  had  brought  down  from  the  upper 
shelf  for  counting.  The  padrona  looked  them 
over  separately,  putting  each  one  down  with  a 
word,  which  evidently  spelled  ruined.  When  the 
pile  was  complete  she  explained  that  she  was  ob- 
liged to  charge  the  value  of  the  set  to  me,  as  it 
was  entirely  useless.  I  explained  that  they  had 
never  been  removed  from  the  top  shelf  during  our 
stay  in  Rome.  It  was  of  no  use,  and  I  began  to 
see  that  my  experience  was  simply  a  repetition  of 
what  had  happened  to  all  previous  tenants.  My 
self-possession  had  been  somewhat  strained  dur- 
ing the  trial  of  going  over  the  inventory,  so  when 
a  certain  line  of  procedure  occurred  to  me  I  felt 
immensely  cheered.  I  called  my  daughter  to 
supplement  my  Italian. 

"Very  well,  Madame.  You  have  fixed  their 
price.  I  will  buy  them." 

She  looked  puzzled.    "You  pay?"  she  said. 

"Yes,  I  buy  them;  they  are  mine." 

Finally  she  acquiesced. 

By  that  time  my  husband  had  wandered  in  to 
help  solve  the  difficulties  and  trials  of  the  situa- 
tion and  give  me  comfort. 

"You   know,"    I   explained,    "I   have   bought 
these    plates;    they   have    cost   you    twenty-five 
dollars." 
13  193 


YESTERDAYS 

He  nodded  approval,  whereupon  I  seated  my- 
self on  the  great  stone  hearth  of  the  dining-room, 
hugging  my  bulky  purchases,  and  proceeded  de- 
liberately to  break  them  one  by  one  on  the  ex- 
panse of  stone.  The  padrona  screamed.  My 
husband  expostulated.  Cannie  took  refuge  in  her 
bedroom,  and  I  proceeded  with  my  breakage, 
answering  my  husband's  continued  expostulations 
with  the  statement,  "They  have  been  paid  for 
every  year  for  forty  years,  and  I  am  going  to  de- 
stroy them."  And  that  was  my  last  purely  per- 
sonal experience  in  the  Eternal  City. 

But  the  glamour  of  the  winter  in  Rome  was  not 
lost  with  the  destruction  of  the  padrona's,  or  my, 
plates.  It  remained  encircled  with  an  indestruc- 
tible halo,  for  it  was  there  that  our  beloved  eldest 
found  her  future.  It  having  been  settled  that 
she  was  to  be  married  at  the  American  Legation 
in  Paris  in  the  autumn,  we  started  on  our  zig- 
zag journey  back  to  Wiesbaden,  stopping  for  a 
month  in  Florence  and  a  few  days  in  other  cities. 

It  was  a  happy  month  at  Florence,  with  its 
rich  past  and  present.  We  found  friends  among 
the  sculptors  and  painters  and  enjoyed  their  ac- 
complishments in  art,  half  wondering  if  any  modern 
work  could  stand  beside  that  of  its  wonderful 
past,  and  meeting  traveling  humanity  in  all  its 
aspects — some  of  them  visitors  who  came  because 
Florence  was  on  the  card  of  travel,  neither  under- 
standing nor  caring  for  its  wonderful  charms, 
194 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

and  others  who  were  themselves  monumental. 
The  "old  folks"  of  our  chance-met  circus-boy 
were  in  the  hotel  where  we  stopped,  and  we  were 
taken  by  the  satisfied  parents  to  see  the  fourteen 
"marble  likenesses"  and  enjoyed  and  loved  their 
Arcadian  simplicity  in  a  place  so  laden  with  world- 
knowledge.  It  was  like  eating  bread  and  wild 
honey  after  a  prolonged  diet  of  French  cookery. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  simplicity,  and  both 
are  good — that  which  has  seen  and  known  noth- 
ing but  that  which  is  true,  and  that  which  has 
seen  and  known  most  things  in  life  and  rejected 
all  but  the  true. 

We  enjoyed  seeing  the  royalty  of  Florence  as 
well  as  the  art — the  abnormal  physical  ugliness 
of  the  good  Victor  Emmanuele  lolling  in  a  shabby 
open  carriage,  and  being  driven  from  park  to 
palace  and  palace  to  park,  apparently  as  uncon- 
scious of  his  kinghood  as  the  horses  which  drew 
him.  It  was  a  delightful  contrast  to  the  beau- 
tiful Ludwig,  with  his  unconscious  consciousness 
of  elevation,  receiving  homage  as  he  sat  in  his 
stately  equipage  in  the  streets  of  Munich  as  nat- 
urally as  a  young  tree  takes  the  sunshine. 

Surely  half  the  pleasure  of  travel  is  in  its  con- 
trasts, and  it  is  an  exquisite  and  constantly  re- 
curring satisfaction  to  "a  good  American"  to 
compare  his  freedom,  in  small  as  well  as  in  large 
things,  with  that  of  citizens  of  historic  countries. 
That  which  pleased  me  both  in  Italy  and  in 


YESTERDAYS 

France  was  the  placing  of  themselves,  by  the 
under  classes,  alongside  the  upper  classes  in  all 
things  connected  with  natural  human  feeling.  It 
seemed  to  be  an  instinctive  claim  of  brotherhood, 
something  which,  curiously  enough,  I  felt  every- 
where, in  the  shops  and  on  'the  streets — the 
brotherhood  of  man.  All  that  was  enjoyable  in 
physical  or  human  nature,  or  all  that  was  tragic, 
was  enjoyed  or  endured  on  exactly  the  same  plane, 
that  of  common  humanity.  A  beggar  does  not 
appeal  to  you  as  a  patron,  but  as  a  fellow-mortal 
who  is  more  fortunate  than  he. 

This  came  home  to  me  delightfully  one  day 
in  the  Boboli  Gardens,  where  we  stopped  to  buy 
flowers  of  a  walking  vender.  He  put  a  foot  on 
the  hub  of  the  wheel  and  rested  his  great  tray 
basket  on  the  rim  of  it,  while  our  girl  daughter 
proceeded  with  her  selection  of  forget-me-nots  and 
moss-rose  buds,  putting  them  together  in  a  fas- 
cinating group.  The  flower- vender  watched  her 
and  the  flowers  as  the  latter  fell  together;  then 
he  nodded  confidentially  at  me,  half  closing  one 
eye. 

"Bella,  per  Bacchus!"  said  he. 

I  was  delighted  to  be  included  in  his  apprecia- 
tion. We  two  were  companions  in  a  pleasurable 
sensation  and  enjoyed  the  companionship. 

I  wonder  if  it  could  happen  in  Central  Park 
even  if  the  vender  were  an  itinerant  Italian?  I 
fear  me  he  would  have  learned  American  man- 
196 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

ners  by  that  time.  Our  people  are  too  conscious 
of  the  space  between  themselves  and  those  who 
are  higher  up;  they  cannot  be  confident  of  them- 
selves. But  for  a  French  or  Italian  peasant  the 
space  does  not  exist. 

When  we  left  Italy  behind  us  and  came  to 
Wiesbaden  we  were  once  more  all  together — a 
happy  six  who  knew  the  joy  of  being  together  be- 
cause we  had  been  so  long  apart.  We  spent  the 
summer  at  Sous  Montreux,  making  excursions 
from  time  to  time  to  everything  which  should  be 
seen,  from  mountains  and  lakes  to  monuments  and 
prisons,  seeing  what  Nature  had  done  in  her  wild- 
est moods,  and  what  man  had  done  in  his  long 
leisure,  and  hugging  the  moments  and  hours  and 
days  as  they  passed;  for  we  knew  that  when 
autumn  came  there  would  be  no  more  united 
summers  and  winters;  we  wondered  what  life 
would  be  like  without  them. 

But  the  summer  with  its  mixed  happiness 
passed  as  all  time  passes,  the  jewel  of  our  happiest 
years  was  married  at  the  American  Legation  in 
Paris  to  Lewis  A.  Stimson,  afterward  Dr.  L.  A. 
Stimson,  and  the  two  young  people  sailed  for  New 
York  to  begin  their  own  real  lives.  My  husband 
convoyed  us  to  Dresden,  leaving  me  with  the 
three  youngsters  who  were  to  be  placed  at  school 
for  the  winter  and  then  returning  to  New  York. 

As  I  remember  that  Dresden  winter,  it  seems  to 
me  to  mark  a  departure  from  a  simply  personal 
197 


YESTERDAYS 

phase  of  life,  for  it  was  the  beginning  of  prepara- 
tion for  work  in  the  world,  for  activities  which 
should  affect  other  lives  and  fortunes  than  our 
own.  I  was  shut  out  by  distance  from  the  won- 
derful friendship  and  social  surroundings  of  home, 
and  brought  face  to  face  with  the  history  and 
accomplishments  of  art.  I  was  to  learn  what  the 
centuries  had  done  in  this  one  direction,  and  how 
great  a  share  it  had  in  the  interests  and  activities 
of  the  world.  I  had  always  felt  that  it  stood 
next  to  nature  in  the  interests  of  life,  and  I  found 
the  study  of  it  very  absorbing. 

As  I  look  back  at  those  years  I  seem  to  see 
myself  standing,  not  only  in  the  current  of  my 
own  life,  but  beside  one  which  was  traveling  slowly 
on  toward  one  of  the  greatest  political  changes 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  Without  realizing 
it,  I  was  seeing  the  first  movements  of  the  world 
war,  the  initial  impulses  which  animated  the  Prus- 
sian army,  and  it  came  about  in  the  most  un- 
usual way.  Because  of  my  leisure  and  constitu- 
tional activity,  I  had  taken  up  the  study  of  the 
German  language  and  its  literature  very  vigor- 
ously, and  for  the  same  reason  had  entered  the 
studio  of  a  German  professor  of  painting. 

I  had  but  few  friends  in  Dresden,  one  or  two 
American  families  only,  but  there  were  two  Amer- 
ican girls  in  the  studio  where  I  painted,  one  of 
whom  was  the  sister  of  a  friend  of  my  husband's, 
and  the  other  the  daughter  of  Chief- Justice  Sal- 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

mon  P.  Chase.  Both  girls  were  motherless,  and 
as  the  mother  of  a  grown-up  and  married  daugh- 
ter I  assumed  the  duties  of  chaperonage,  which 
grew  to  be  very  amusing  and  interesting,  as  the 
abundant  population  of  gay  young  Prussian  offi- 
cers had  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  charms  of 
American  girls  and  an  almost  uncanny  knowl- 
edge of  the  social  and  pecuniary  advantages  of 
each  one  of  them.  I  was  quite  disarmed  and 
almost  attracted  by  the  innocent  frankness  with 
which  they  would  proceed  to  the  unfolding  of 
their  matrimonial  plans. 

It  seemed  to  be  one  of  the  decrees  of  the  paternal 
government  that  no  member  of  the  army  could 
marry  unless  the  wished-for  bride  could  place 
sixty  thousand  thalers  in  the  treasury  to  secure 
the  dignity  of  the  prospective  military  family. 

"And  must  this  always  be  furnished  by  the 
bride?"  I  asked. 

"Oh  no!  not  if  the  bridegroom's  family  is 
wealthy.  But  you  know  officers  have  only  their 
maintenance  from  the  government,  and  Americans 
are  all  so  rich." 

The  innocent  candor  of  this  was  enticing  from 
the  gaily  caparisoned  heroes,  especially  as  in  one 
or  two  cases  it  was  accompanied  with  voluble 
protestations  of  unmercenary  affection.  There 
were  very  amusing  if  not  profitable  afternoons 
when  by  ones  and  twos  the  officers  were  allowed 
to  call  upon  us  in  the  studio.  Our  Herr  Professor 
199 


YESTERDAYS 

was  very  obsequious,  and  often  conveniently  ab- 
sent, and  the  girl  students  were  very  merry.  When 
there  were  more  men  to  be  received  and  more  girls 
to  receive,  I  entertained  them  in  my  great  bare 
hotel  parlor,  and  after  inviting  them  into  removing 
swords  and  helmets,  which  it  seemed  they  could 
not  do  except  by  special  invitation,  I  was  greatly 
amused  by  the  interchange  of  instruction  in  the 
classics  of  the  two  languages.  Bits  from  one  and 
another  of  the  German  poets,  sonorously  de- 
livered, were  swapped  for  rhymes  from  Mother 
Goose,  which  these  irresistible  girls  claimed  to  be 
among  the  oldest  and  best  of  our  lyrics.  The  repe- 
tition in  imperfect  E*nglish  by  these  splendid 
specimens  of  physical  manhood  had  an  effect  of 
babyhood  suddenly  grafted  upon  magnificent  ma- 
turity. When  they  came  to  the  daring  experiment 
of  "Hey  diddle  diddle,  the  cat  and  the  fiddle," 
I  held  my  breath,  for  it  seemed  to  me  too  trans- 
parent, but  they  were  imperturbable.  I  think 
they  could  not  conceive  of  such  daring.  Naturally 
they  were  preoccupied  with  the  learning  of  Eng- 
lish in  so  pleasant  a  way  and  at  the  same  time 
reconnoitering  for  a  domestic  future.  Yet  these 
attractive  innocents  were  prospective  actors  in 
the  war  which  was  even  then  just  below  the  hori- 
zon of  the  future.  They  talked  of  it  eagerly,  the 
coming  time  when  they  should  "march  to  Paris." 
It  was  a  part  of  their  glory-dream,  and  they 
sought  to  transfer  something  of  its  glamour  to  the 

20Q 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

imaginations  of  our  foreign  minds.  They  made 
little  phrases  and  speeches  of  anticipation  and 
had  them  translated  into  English  by  the  willing 
girls,  so  that  they  could  extend  their  self-glori- 
fication into  another  language;  but  there  was 
always  something  added  by  the  ingenious  trans- 
lators, which  savored  of  a  possible  inglorious 
failure;  it  satisfied  our  democratic  instincts  to 
hear  these  "double  intenders"  repeated  in  our 
guests'  imperfect  English. 

There  was  a  sequel  to  these  days  of  military 
association  in  Dresden  that  has  left  a  picture  in 
my  mind  which  has  the  effect  of  one  of  the  Rem- 
brandt-like flashes  of  color  seen  in  a  picture-gal- 
lery, where  rows  and  rows  of  pleasant  ordinary- 
paintings  are  hung;  and  this  is  the  story  of  it. 

An  American  girl  who  painted  with  us  was  the 
daughter  of  a  successful  merchant  of  New  York, 
who  had  been  born  in  Germany,  but  had  made  his 
fortune  in  America.  He  knew  and  perhaps  ad- 
mired the  attitude  of  the  German  governments 
in  all  that  ministered  to  the  superiority  of  the 
army,  so  when  a  young  officer  of  inherited  im- 
portance wished  to  marry  his  daughter  the  father 
hastened  to  furnish  the  sixty  thousand  thalers 
required  for  the  purpose.  She  was  a  nice  child, 
and  hopelessly  in  love  with  the  entrancing  creature 
who  wanted  her,  and  they  were  married.  I  wish 
I  could  add  the  old  formula,  "and  lived  happily 
ever  after,"  but  it  was  not  to  be. 


YESTERDAYS 

The  war  with  France  which  these  warlike 
young  men  had  been  delightedly  foretelling  came, 
and  the  young  husband,  happily  settled  in  Ber- 
lin, went  with  the  army  to  Paris,  and  after  a 
time  was  sent  back  to  Germany  in  charge  of 
French  prisoners.  In  the  mean  time  a  baby  boy 
had  been  born  to  him  in  Berlin,  and  his  instruc- 
tions took  him  through  that  city.  It  was  night 
when  he  came,  and  he  hurried  to  greet  his  wife 
and  look  at  his  boy,  leaving  his  escort  waiting  in 
the  street  while  he  ran  up  to  his  apartment.  One 
can  fancy  the  meeting  and  the  joy  of  the  father 
in  seeing  for  the  first  time  his  own  child.  It  was 
a  joy  that  must  be  shared,  so  he  bundled  the  baby 
in  its  blankets  and  ran  down  to  the  street  to  his 
troop,  where  it  was  passed  from  hand  to  hand 
and  from  horse  to  horse  in  the  flaring  light  of 
torches.  The  happy  father  was  complimented 
and  congratulated  to  his  heart's  content,  the  un- 
conscious baby  was  carried  to  its  nest  again,  and 
the  troopers  clattered  away,  having  shared  for  a 
picturesque  moment  one  of  the  greatest  of  human 
sensations — and  that  was  the  end  of  the  story. 
The  father  fell  in  the  first  battle  after  his  return, 
and  the  little  bride  had  only  the  memory  of  her 
magnificent  mate  to  comfort  her  coming  years. 
But  she  had  had  her  dream. 

Dresden  has  always  stood  for  much  in  my  mem- 
ory; its  art  was  great,  and  its  social  life  was  in- 
teresting. The  gentle,  most  unwarlike  King  John 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

was  merely  a  picture  of  a  king  as  he  was  driven 
daily  around  in  sight  of  the  people ;  but  once,  when 
the  first  Emperor  Fritz  came  to  Dresden  to  visit 
him,  and  the  two  monarchs  held  a  great  review, 
and  all  that  was  glittering  and  magnificent  and 
powerful  suddenly  came  to  the  surface,  as  if  called 
into  apparent  being  by  a  conjurer — ah,  then  one 
realized  kinghood ! 

After  our  first  experience  of  foreign  travel,  we 
spent  many  of  our  winters  abroad,  and  during  one 
of  them  we  were  located  in  a  little  French  hotel 
in  the  Rue  du  Bac.  A  very  French  hotel  it  was, 
filled  with  French  professors,  a  few  French  stu- 
dents, French  men  of  business,  and  a  very  small 
number  of  Americans,  among  whom  were  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  James  Russell  Lowell,  John  Holmes,  brother 
of  Dr.  Oliver  Holmes,  and — much  to  our  liking — 
our  own  immediate  family  of  Dora  and  the  young- 
est boy,  and  our  dear  eldest  daughter  and  her 
husband,  Dr.  Lewis  Stimson,  with  their  two  small 
children.  We  had  known  the  Lowells  at  Mount 
Desert  in  the  years  when  it  was  a  favorite  summer 
resort  of  the  Boston  literary  set,  as  well  as  of 
rusticated  Harvard  students  and  New  York  ar- 
tists. Mr.  Lowell  and  my  husband  had  tramped 
the  Maine  hills  together  in  those  days  to  their 
mutual  satisfaction,  and  they  resumed  the  tramp- 
ing in  the  byways  of  Paris. 

Mrs.  Lowell  and  our  married  daughter,  who 
was  the  outgrowth  of  the  "genteel  baby,"  of 
203 


YESTERDAYS 

Brooklyn  days,  had  also  knitted  and  sewed  and 
crocheted  together  on  the  piazza  of  the  primitive 
Mount  Desert  Hotel,  and  this  previous  acquaint- 
ance grew  in  the  course  of  the  winter,  in  Paris, 
into  an  appreciative  friendship.  Mr.  Lowell  had 
a  poet's  enjoyment  of  the  beauty  and  charm 
possessed  by  the  young  wife  and  mother  who  was 
spending  the  winter  in  Paris  while  her  husband 
was  hearing  lectures  at  the  Sorbonne,  and  he  had  a 
great  sympathy  for  our  girl  Dora,  who  was  shut  in 
from  so  much  of  the  gaiety  of  youth  in  consequence 
of  a  misstep  on  a  long  flight  of  marble  stairs. 
Nothing  could  have  been  kinder  or  more  spon- 
taneous than  his  efforts  to  make  her  life  a  happy 
one.  The  Lowells'  great  friend,  John  Holmes, 
was  staying  at  the  same  hotel,  and  Mr.  Lowell 
unscrupulously  enlisted  him  as  an  additional  en- 
tertainer. One  or  the  other  devoted  an  hour 
every  evening  in  the  after-dinner  darkness  to  the 
telling  of  stories  for  Dora's  amusement,  packing 
the  hour  with  every  interesting  happening  of  the 
day.  Sometimes  Mr.  Lowell  would  recite  a  new 
saga,  or  he  would  incite  Mr.  Holmes  to  repeat 
incidents  and  memories  of  their  summer  camp 
life  in  the  Maine  woods  or  the  Adirondacks — a 
gathering  of  that  wonderful  group  of  Boston  men 
for  whom  Providence  had  arranged  a  simultane- 
ous term  of  life  and  vicinity — Emerson  and  Whit- 
tier  and  Longfellow  and  Lowell  and  Hawthorne 
and  Holmes — together  with  one  or  two  lesser 
204 


GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  FRANCE 

mortals  who  could  contribute  stray  starbeams  to 
the  general  illumination.  We  had  read  of  these 
campings  in  Whittier's  liquid  verse,  but  it  was 
another  thing  to  hear  them  recalled  by  voice  with 
no  curtain  of  printing  or  publishing  between. 

Mr.  Lowell's  talk  was  always  worth  hearing; 
I  think  he  found  it  so  himself,  for  good  conversa- 
tion is  as  interesting  to  the  talker  as  to  the  hearer; 
otherwise  it  could  not  be  good.  "A  dream  of  a 
man,"  Dora  called  him.  Yes,  Mr.  Lowell  was 
always  delightful !  Humanness — and  he  had  much 
of  it — and  superiority  are  a  delectable  mixture. 
His  theories  of  literary  methods  and  uses  of  words 
were  favorite  subjects,  and  I  remember  his  say- 
ing that  New  England  had  many  words  in  com- 
mon use  which  English  people  called  "American." 
He  cited  several  which  I  have  forgotten,  but  there 
was  one,  not,  indeed,  in  common  use,  which  had 
made  a  flying  leap  from  Shakespeare's  day  into  Old 
New  England,  and  had  maintained  a  sleepy  exist- 
ence there,  while  apparently  dead  in  the  land  of  its 
birth.  One  day  his  mother  was  knitting,  and  her 
yarn  got  into  a  tangle  as  she  worked  and  talked. 
Every  knitter  knows  what  unremitting  attention 
is  demanded  by  the  simple  process  of  lifting  a 
loop  from  a  knitting-needle  and  making  a  new 
one  to  stand  in  procession  without  getting  the 
thread  into  a  snarl.  That  was  what  had  happened 
to  his  mother's  yarn  as  she  talked.  Suddenly  she 
exclaimed : 

205 


YESTERDAYS 

"There!    I  shall  have  to  slieve  it  out." 

I  fancy  her  son's  face  must  have  had  the  ex- 
pression of  a  dog  on  a  scent;  for  he  was  "point- 
ing" a  word. 

"What  did  you  say  you  should  have  to  do  to 
your  knitting,  Mother?" 

"Slieve  it  out!"  she  answered. 

"I  never  heard  that  word  before,"  said  the  son. 

"Why,  it  means  ravel.  People  always  said 
slieve  when  I  was  a  girl,"  answered  she,  and  that, 
said  Mr.  Lowell,  made  a  new  reading  of  "Knit 
up  the  ravel'd  sleeve  of  care."  Shakespeare  meant 
the  yarn  and  not  a  part  of  a  garment. 

Mrs.  Lowell  was  a  very  charming  domestic 
woman,  full  of  sweetness  and  desire  to  make  people 
happy.  It  was  just  after  Mr.  Lowell's  return  from 
Spain,  and  he  had  subsided  very  contentedly  into 
the  unwonted  experience  of  idleness. 

After  the  Lowells  and  Mr.  Holmes  were  gone 
a  scholarly-looking  Englishman  and  his  wife  came 
one  day  to  the  little  hotel.  A  "horse-faced"  Eng- 
lishwoman, my  daughter  characterized  her.  They 
were  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lewes  (George  Eliot).  Mr. 
Lowell  had  told  us  of  their  coming  long  before, 
saying  that  he  had  introduced  us  to  her  and  he 
wished  us  to  verify  the  introduction.  When  my 
daughter  saw  them  at  the  luncheon-table  and 
recognized  Mrs.  Lewes's  face  and  style  from  Mrs. 
Lowell's  description,  she  made  ready  to  speak  to 
her  immediately  after  luncheon,  but  was  some- 
206 


GERMANY,    ITALY,   AND    FRANCE 

what  delayed  by  an  American  friend  who  came 
late  to  the  table,  bringing  with  her  a  book  she 
had  borrowed  from  us,  and  explaining  volubly 
how  much  she  liked  it.  It  was  Daniel  Deronda, 
and  as  even  enthusiastic  criticism  might  be  dis- 
astrous in  the  presence  of  the  author,  my  daughter 
made  haste  to  get  over  the  introduction  of  her- 
self; it  ended  by  Mrs.  Lewes  proposing  to  visit 
her  at  once  in  her  own  room  in  order  to  prolong 
the  conversation. 

It  proved  to  be,  in  fact,  a  lengthy  interrogation, 
and  in  recounting  it  to  us  afterward  my  daughter 
said  she  felt  like  a  turned-out  glove.  It  covered 
minutely  the  days  of  a  school  year  in  a  French 
pension,  then  a  housekeeping  year  of  her  married 
life  in  Paris,  and  in  fact  every  incident  of  her 
Paris  experiences — little  minutiae  of  the  domestic 
menage,  of  the  servants  and  their  privileges  and 
ways,  stopping  hardly  short  of  an  inventory  of  the 
copper  saucepans. 

"I  did  not  get  much  from  her,"  she  said,  "in 
the  way  of  intellectual  sensation,  but  she  got  lots 
from  me  in  the  way  of  domestic  experiences.  I 
wonder  what  she  wanted  to  do  with  them?"  And 
at  this  melancholy  conclusion  we  all  laughed. 

"It  is  just  one  of  the  ways  in  which  authors  get 
their  facts,"  said  my  husband. 

We  found  the  Leweses  very  pleasant,  but  self- 
absorbed  and  unsympathetic,  as  we  count  the 
outgiving  of  human  kindness.  Still,  it  was  a 
207 


YESTERDAYS 

worth-while  experience  to  have  seen  and  talked 
with  Mrs.  Lewes,  and  it  helped  to  make  an  in- 
teresting winter. 

It  was  indeed  a  winter  which  had  much  to  do 
with  Dora's  future,  for  the  absolute  bodily  in- 
action which  seemed  to  be  a  condition  of  her  re- 
covery was  so  at  odds  with  her  mental  activity 
that  it  resulted  in  constant  use  of  the  pencil. 
For  months  she  drew  incessantly  in  light  sketch- 
books which  could  stand  against  a  pillow,  and 
at  the  end  of  the  time  she  had  acquired  a  facility 
which  could  not  possibly  have  been  gained  in 
the  same  time  from  the  broken  practice  of  schools. 
Everybody  sat  to  her,  from  the  voluble  and  in- 
terested proprietor  and  his  capable  wife  and  the 
mademoiselle  who  apparently  controlled  the  fin- 
ances to  the  cook  and  the  porter.  The  proprietor 
made  an  absolute  fad  of  the  sketch-books,  ex- 
plaining that  "Mademoiselle  la  Malade"  should 
have  a  complete  collection  of  the  "types"  inci- 
dent to  a  French  pension,  in  the  Latin  quarter; 
he  would  borrow  these  books  on  occasion  to  show 
the  portrait  of  the  United  States  Minister  to 
Spain,  heading  a  procession  which  included  the 
proprietor  himself.  So  the  winter  gave  ' '  Mademoi- 
selle la  Malade"  not  only  skill  gained  by  much 
unacademic  practice,  but  friends  whose  friendship 
was  a  rare  boon.  For  Mr.  Lowell  remained,  as 
people  do  who  have  given  kindnesses  freely  and 
unselfishly,  always  a  faithful  and  interested  friend. 
208 


VIII 

THE   SOCIETY   OF   DECORATIVE   ART 

A  LTHOUGH  during  the  years  of  which  I  have 
**  been  writing  I  was  apparently  absorbed  in 
family  life,  and  country  life,  and  social  life,  I  see 
that  these  things  -had  in  themselves  elements  of 
wider  forms  of  usefulness;  so  that  now  when  the 
loss  came  which  changed  my  whole  attitude  tow- 
ard life  and  taught  me  its  duties,  not  only  to  those 
I  loved,  but  to  all  who  needed  help  and  comfort, 
I  was  not  unprepared. 

I  saw  that  many  difficulties  of  existence  were 
preventable,  or  at  least  capable  of  alleviation, 
and  here  came  in  the  benefit  of  my  Puritan  child- 
hood experiences,  where  self-help  had  been  the 
first  law.  There  were  so  many  unhappy  and  ap- 
parently helpless  women,  dependent  upon  kin 
who  had  their  own  especial  responsibilities  and 
burdens,  and  these  women  appealed  to  me 
strongly,  for  I  could  so  easily  understand  their 
misery. 

Forty  years  ago  there  was  no  outlet  for  the 
ability  of  educated  women,  and  yet  there  was 

14  209 


YESTERDAYS 

often  a  pathetic  necessity  for  remunerative  work; 
added  to  this  was  the  fact  that  washing,  scrub- 
bing, and  the  roughest  of  domestic  work  were 
almost  the  only  forms  of  paid  labor  among  women. 

Of  course  teaching  was  out  of  this  class. 
Teachers  of  music  and  letters  were  grudgingly 
included  in  the  fellowship  of  general  society. 

Women  of  all  classes  had  always  been  dependent 
upon  the  wage-earning  capacity  of  men,  and  al- 
though the  strict  observance  of  the  custom  had 
become  inconvenient  and  did  not  fit  the  times, 
the  sentiment  of  it  remained.  But  the  time  was 
ripe  for  a  change.  It  was  still  unwritten  law  that 
women  should  not  be  wage-earners  or  salary  bene- 
ficiaries, but  necessity  was  stronger  than  the  law. 
In  those  early  days  I  found  myself  constantly 
devising  ways  of  help  in  individual  dilemmas, 
the  disposing  of  small  pictures,  embroidery,  and 
handwork  of  various  sorts  for  the  benefit  of 
friends  or  friends  of  friends  who  were  cramped  by 
untoward  circumstances. 

It  was  the  year  of  the  first  "World's  Fair,"  held 
in  Philadelphia  in  1876,  and  among  other  things 
of  interest  I  came  across  the  exhibit  of  needle- 
work of  the  newly  founded  "Kensington  School 
of  Art  Needlework"  (London).  It  had  been  es- 
tablished to  meet  exactly  the  circumstances  which 
existed  among  people  I  knew  here  in  New  York. 
Its  primary  object  was  to  benefit  a  class  which  it 
called  "decayed  gentlewomen."  This  phrase,  so 
210 


SOCIETY   OF    DECORATIVE   ART 

constantly  used  in  connection  with  those  for  whom 
the  praiseworthy  and  sympathetic  effort  was 
being  made  in  England,  was  utterly  rejected  by 
our  more  sensitive  ears  and  tastes.  We  would 
not  use  so  unsavory  an  epithet  for  our  friends,  but, 
although  I  rejected  the  phrase,  I  was  much  taken 
by  the  idea. 

The  "Kensington  School,"  as  this  effort  was 
called,  was  fortunately  connected  with  an  impulse 
toward  the  revival  of  many  of  the  medieval  arts, 
which  in  the  past  had  enriched  the  life  and  history 
of  England.  The  little  group  of  Pre-Raphaelite 
painters,  who  certainly  "builded  better  than  they 
knew,"  became  linked  with  the  available  labor 
of  cultivated  women.  In  this  way  embroidery 
became  a  means  of  artistic  expression  and  a  thing 
of  value. 

Happily  the  revival  had  been  shorn  of  mediev- 
alism by  the  cleverness  of  the  men  who  were  lead- 
ing it.  The  designs  of  artists  like  Burne- Jones, 
Morris,  and,  above  all,  the  direct  and  graceful 
work  of  Walter  Crane,  founded  always  upon  forms 
of  growth  skilfully  chosen  and  carefully  adapted 
to  needlework,  gave  great  value  to  the  new  re- 
vival of  embroidery. 

It  all  interested  me  extremely,  for  it  meant 
the  conversion  of  the  common  and  inalienable 
heritage  of  feminine  skill  in  the  use  of  the  needle 
into  a  means  of  art-expression  and  pecuniary 
profit. 


YESTERDAYS 

The  actual  specimens  of  the  Kensington  work 
were  to  my  mind  very  simple  and  almost  inade- 
quate. They  were  embroidered  towels  which 
were  used  in  that  day  to  cover  chair-backs  and 
were  called  "tidies."  Towels  were  converted  into 
tidies  by  a  small  flower  design  worked  in  one  corner 
or  across  one  end  in  what  had  been  christened 
"the  Kensington  stitch."  It  was  not  a  new  stitch, 
for  centuries  of  needlework  practice  had  exhausted 
every  possibility  in  that  line. 

There  were  also  table-covers  of  gray  linen,  with 
embroidered  borders;  one  or  two  composed  by  no 
less  a  person  than  Walter  Crane.  It  seemed  to  me 
a  very  simple  sort  of  effort  to  have  gained  the 
vogue  of  a  new  art,  and  I  saw  that  it  was  easily 
within  the  compass  of  almost  every  woman.  It 
required  far  less  ability  than  painting  china  or 
more  or  less  ambitious  pictures,  or  making  elabo- 
rate needle-books  for  sale  among  one's  friends. 

All  this,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  in  the  day 
when  women  had  not  learned  to  use  their  brains 
for  business  or  their  every-day  talents  in  the 
thousand  and  one  ways  which  are  available  at 
present. 

Gradually  a  plan  grew  in  my  mind  for  the 
formation  of  an  American  "Kensington  School," 
which  should  include  all  articles  of  feminine 
manufacture,  and  then  and  there,  in  the  inter- 
vals of  sight-seeing  and  study  of  old  and  new 
examples  of  woman's  handiwork  which  had  been 


SOCIETY   OF    DECORATIVE   ART 

brought  together  in  the  great  Centennial  Expo- 
sition, I  wrote  out  a  little  circular  to  explain  my 
project  to  friends  and  helpers.  I  have  it  now, 
one  of  the  small  and,  happily,  most  effective  seeds 
sown  in  that  day  of  woman's  awakening  to  the 
duty  of  self-help. 

When  I  returned  to  New  York  and  reviewed 
my  plans  and  visions,  it  seemed  to  me  that  with 
the  help  of  my  friends  it  was  quite  possible  to 
set  machinery  in  motion  which  would  work  out 
a  new  commercial  opportunity  for  women.  Those 
who  met  at  my  house  saw  what  great  results  might 
come  from  combination  of  effort,  and  were  willing 
to  help.  After  this  decision  was  arrived  at,  and 
we  were  dispersing,  one  socially  wise  friend  said 
to  me: 

"Whatever  you  do,  don't  call  in  Mrs.  David 
Lane." 

"Why?"  I  asked. 

"She  will  make  it  a  success,  but  she  will  absorb 
it." 

"She  can't  absorb  its  use,"  thought  I  to  my- 
self, and  the  next  day  I  went  to  see  her  and  un- 
folded my  project. 

It  was  not  long  after  the  work  of  the  great 
Sanitary  Fair  of  New  York,  which  had  brought  a 
million  dollars  into  the  blessed  hands  of  the 
Sanitary  Commission,  and  Mrs.  Lane  had  been 
its  president  and  had  worked  up  its  thousands  of 
sources  of  profits  and  help.  I  remember  after- 
213 


YESTERDAYS 

ward  seeing  the  canceled  check  of  one  million 
dollars  framed  and  glazed  and  hanging  in  the 
library  of  its  treasurer,  Mr.  John  Gourley.  Mrs. 
Lane  had  set  this  great  enterprise  in  motion,  and 
she  had  the  eyes  of  a  woman  who  could  see 
things  which  had  not  yet  entered  upon  their 
existence.  We  discussed  calling  a  meeting  for 
organization. 

"Naturally  you  will  be  made  president  of  the 
society,"  said  Mrs.  Lane,  looking  at  me  tenta- 
tively. 

"No,"  said  I,  "you  must  be  president.  Make 
me 'corresponding  secretary,  and  manage  that  I 
shall  have  a  free  hand,  for  I  want  to  have  associate 
societies  in  every  city  in  the  United  States." 

"We  ought  to  work  well  together,  each  in  her 
own  way,"  said  she,  with  the  wise  smile  which  I 
grew  to  know  so  well,  and  which  covered  a  pleni- 
tude of  wisdom. 

We  fixed  the  time  and  place  of  the  meeting  at 
the  house  of  Mrs.  Benjamin  Arnold,  whose  daugh- 
ter, Charlotte  Arnold,  was  already  interested  in 
the  scheme,  and  whose  great  drawing-room  and 
adjoining  halls  could  hold  a  veritable  assembly. 

"I  have  enlisted  Mrs.  David  Lane,"  said  I  to 
the  friend  who  had  cautioned  me  against  it. 

"Oh,  you  gaby!  You  have  buried  yourself," 
said  she,  vindictively. 

"But  the  project,"  said  I,  "she  is  going  to 
nurse  it!" 

214 


SOCIETY   OF    DECORATIVE    ART 

"All  right,  my  dear;  do  it  if  you  want  to,  but 
you  will  see!" 

The  meeting  came  off  in  time,  Mrs.  Lane  acting 
as  chairman,  and  I  as  secretary;  and  when  I 
heard  her  condensed  and  yet  comprehensive  state- 
ment of  its  object  I  could  have  hugged  myself  in 
delight  at  its  cleverness ;  and  when  the  names  pro- 
posed and  accepted  as  incorporators  were  an- 
nounced I  was  elated.  Every  one  of  them  told, 
but  when  the  name  of  the  new  society  was  dis- 
cussed and  settled  as  "The  Society  of  Decorative 
Art,"  I  felt  some  misgiving.  The  name  seemed  to 
give  undue  prominence  to  an  advanced  art,  a 
consummation  which  we  should  need  much  time 
and  long  effort  to  compass.  However,  the  thing 
was  done.  The  new  society  which  was  to  open 
the  door  to  honest  effort  among  women  was 
launched,  and  if  it  was  narrow  it  was  still  a  door. 
We  proceeded  to  take  a  suite  of  rooms  in  Madison 
Avenue  for  offices,  and  to  arrange  conditions  and 
terms  for  what  we  called  contributors'  member- 
ship— contributors  meaning  the  makers  of  articles 
offered  for  sale. 

Of  course,  it  was  through  Mrs.  Lane's  influence 
that  the  new  society  was  equipped  with  a  board 
of  managers  which  included  all  the  great  names  in 
New  York;  and  its  advisory  council  were  men 
who  had  made  their  way  to  the  top  in  all  the 
various  lines  of  success.  I  find  they  stand  as  fol- 
lows in  the  small  circular  which  I  have  preserved : 
215 


YESTERDAYS 

Mrs.  J.  J.  Astor         Miss  Bryant        Mr.  Wm.  C.  Bryant 
Mrs.  Wm.  M.  Evarts  Miss  C.  Furniss    Mr.  Howard  Potter 
Mrs.  David  Lane       Miss  Cooper        Mr.  Joseph  H.  Choate 
Mr.  Levi  P.  Morton  Mr.  James  W.  Pinchot 

Mr.  August  Belmont 
Mrs.  T.  M.  Wheeler 
Mrs.  J.  W.  Pinchot 

I  find  myself  looking  in  vain  in  this  list  for 
the  more  prominent  names  of  to-day;  there  is 
neither  a  Vanderbilt  nor  a  Pierpont  Morgan  among 
them,  while  many  of  those  whose  names  I  have 
quoted  are  now  but  dimly  remembered.  It  seems 
that  the  aristocracy  of  brains  and  wealth  changes 
once  in  fifty  years,  and  we  may  say  of  even  the 
most  prominent  of  them,  "The  places  which  knew 
them  once  know  them  no  more." 

The  objects  of  the  society  are  set  forth  as  follows, 
and,  although  highly  ambitious,  they  were  emi- 
nently praiseworthy: 

I.  To   encourage   profitable   industries   among 
women  who  possess  artistic  talent,  and  to  furnish 
a  standard  of  excellence  and  a  market  for  their 
work. 

II.  To  accumulate  and  distribute  information 
concerning  the  various  art  industries  which  have 
been  found  remunerative  in  other  countries,  and 
to  form  classes  in  art-needlework,  and  the  decora- 
tion of  china,  under  instruction  of  the  best  grade. 

III.  To  establish  rooms  for  the  exhibition  and 
sale  of  paintings,  wood-carvings,  paintings  upon 
slate,  porcelain  and  pottery,  lace-work,  art  and 

216 


SOCIETY   OF    DECORATIVE   ART 

ecclesiastical  needlework,  tapestries  and  hang- 
ings; and,  in  short,  decorative  work  of  any  de- 
scription, done  by  women,  and  of  sufficient  excel- 
lence to  meet  the  recently  stimulated  demand  for 
such  work. 

IV.  To   form    auxiliary    committees   in    other 
cities  and  towns  of  the  United  States,  which  com- 
mittees shall  receive  and  pronounce  upon  work 
produced  in,  or  in  the  vicinity  of  such  places, 
which,  if  approved  by  them,  may  be  consigned  to 
the  salesrooms  in  New  York. 

V.  To    make    connections    with    potteries    by 
which  desirable  forms  for  decoration  or  original 
designs  for  special  orders  may  be  procured,  and 
with  manufacturers  and  importers  of  the  various 
materials  used  in  art-work  by  which  artists  may 
profit. 

VI.  To  endeavor  to  obtain  orders  from  dealers 
in  china,  cabinet-work,  or  articles  belonging  to 
household  art  throughout  the  United  States. 

VII.  To    induce    each    worker    to    thoroughly 
master  the  details  of  one  variety  of  decoration, 
and  endeavor  to  make  for  her  work  a  reputation 
of  commercial  value. 

The  immediate  response  was  rather  astonishing. 
The  advent  of  the  society  had  been  well  adver- 
tised as  fashionable  news,  and  it  seemed  as  if 
every  one  of  the  "contributing  members"  must 
have  had  a  storehouse  of  articles  already  pre- 
pared for  sale  before  the  society  existed.  Of 
217 


YESTERDAYS 

course,  many  of  them  were  inadmissible,  and  as 
the  work  of  letter-writing  soon  became  immense 
the  services  of  a  paid  secretary  became  necessary. 
Mrs.  Lane  spent  all  her  morning  hours  at  the 
rooms,  and  I  left  beloved  "Nestledown"  to  its 
own  devices  through  every  week-day. 

One  day  Mrs.  Lane  said  to  me:  "I  have  just 
heard  that  General  Ouster's  widow  is  in  New 
York,  looking  for  some  profitable  employment, 
for  her  government  pension  is  so  small  that  she 
cannot  live  on  it.  How  would  it  do  to  offer  her 
the  secretaryship?" 

"Oh,  don't !"  said  I,  impulsively.  "I  am  as  sorry 
for  her  as  I  can  be,  but  we  must  have  a  business- 
like and  useful  secretary." 

She  smiled  her  wise  smile  at  me,  and  I  could 
almost  hear  it  murmur,  "Just  now  her  name 
would  be  valuable,"  but  she  went  on,  quietly,  "I 
have  asked  her  to  come  here  at  eleven  to  see  us." 

She  came,  the  pathetic  figure  in  widow's  weeds, 
which  seemed  to  hold  the  shadow  of  a  heart- 
rending tragedy.  So  modest  in  her  estimate  of 
herself,  so  earnest  in  her  desire  to  do  something 
for  our  enterprise,  and  so  fixed  in  her  determina- 
tion to  do  something  practical  for  her  own  needs! 

My  jealous  love  for  the  cause  of  the  society 
melted  into  a  sense  that  this  one  lone  woman  was 
an  integral  part  of  the  great  cause.  She  was  en- 
gaged at  the  modest  salary  we  could  afford,  and 
an  intimacy  of  work  between  us  began  which 
218 


SOCIETY    OF    DECORATIVE    ART 

was  to  grow  into  an  intimacy  of  love  and  appre- 
ciation that  has  been  the  treasured  solace  of  years. 
The  capacity  and  sympathy  she  developed  seemed 
made  for  our  needs.  The  letters  of  explanation 
and  instruction  and  encouragement  to  our  army 
of  luckless  contributors  became  a  flood,  but  she 
was  never  swamped  by  them. 

Among  my  friends  the  painters  I  had  been  able 
to  enlist  a  committee  of  judges  upon  the  articles 
submitted  for  sale,  which  we  called  the  Committee 
of  Admissions,  and  these  patient  men  came  duly 
and  periodically  to  criticize  our  contributions.  I 
found  they  were  always  willing  to  instruct  Mrs. 
Custer,  and  I  repeated  to  myself  Mrs.  Lane's 
"It  will  tell"  whenever  I  wondered  at  their 
patient  explanations. 

Finding  us  sadly  in  need  of  designs  to  lend  to 
our  contributors,  since  their  own  amateurish  com- 
positions or  selections  often  defeated  the  ac- 
ceptance of  their  work,  our  Committee  of  Ad- 
missions established  among  themselves  a  little 
evening  club  to  which  half  of  the  members  brought 
an  original  design  every  alternate  week  to  be 
mutually  criticized  and  voted  upon,  the  preferred 
ones  to  be  given  to  the  society.  I  joined  this  club, 
and  had  the  benefit  of  their  criticisms,  a  privilege 
which  was  to  stand  me  in  good  stead  in  coming 
days. 

Of  course,  they  were  often  amused  at  articles 
which  came  before  them  as  art-work,  even  after 
219 


YESTERDAYS 

our  most  conscientious  selection;  and  I  remember 
the  muttered  answer  to  one  of  my  apologetic 
recommendations:  "I  know!  I  know!  The  poor 
ye  have  always  with  ye."  Also  I  recall  Hopkinson 
Smith's  delight  at  a  glib  letter  from  a  clever  Wash- 
ington contributor  thanking  us  for  our  criticisms 
of  her  work,  and  her  remarks  as  to  the  functions 
of  decoration,  saying  that  she  "would  rather 
decorate  a  coal-scuttle  worthily  than  to  sculp 
statues  for  the  Congressional  squares." 

All  this  was  interesting  and  often  confusing. 
But  how  patient  were  our  judges  and  advisers! 
Their  names  should  be  "written  in  brass,"  and 
indeed  every  one  of  them  has  been  written  where 
only  good  and  worthy  work  tells — in  the  hearts 
and  love  of  the  great  art -loving  public. 

In  the  mean  time  we  had  established  classes  in 
Kensington  embroidery  under  a  graduate  of  the 
English  school,  for  we  soon  found  that  we  must 
educate  those  whom  we  were  trying  to  serve. 
Some  of  the  officers  of  the  society  joined  the 
classes,  for  the  new  stitchery  had  great  vogue,  and 
it  was  amusing  to  see  the  teacher,  Mrs.  Pode, 
try  to  keep  her  society-class  down  to  the  A-B-C 
of  English  teaching.  At  the  first  lesson  each  one 
accomplished  with  celerity  her  small  piece  of  a 
single  daisy  upon  a  square  of  gray  linen,  done 
with  the  modulated  English  crewels,  and  then 
began  to  look  over  the  portfolio  of  Kensing- 
ton designs  which  Mrs.  Pode  had  brought,  at 


SOCIETY    OF    DECORATIVE    ART 

the  same  time  voicing  characteristic  American 
ambitions. 

"Can't  I  do  something  in  silk?"  asked  one. 

"Certainly,"  said  Mrs.  Pode,  "after  you  are 
through  with  the  course  of  crewels.  That  is  the 
last  thing  to  learn." 

"Oh,  but  you  do  not  expect  me  to  do  this  sort 
of  thing  again?" 

"Not  absolutely  the  same,"  said  Mrs.  Pode, 
"for  you  have  done  this  very  well,  but  the  second 
lesson  will  be  a  tidy,  with  the  sweet-pea  design." 

"Oh  no!  I  think  I  will  do  a  table-cover  with 
this  Walter  Crane  honeysuckle  border.  I  like  it, 
and  I  shouldn't  mind  having  a  linen  table-cover 
for  one  of  my  bedrooms  in  the  country." 

Mrs.  Pode  opened  her  eyes,  and  a  puzzled  look 
came  over  her  face.  "That  is  one  of  the  last 
lessons,"  said  she. 

"Is  it?  Why,  I  can  do  it  just  as  well  now!  I 
must  have  something  better  than  that  tidy." 

And  it  was  so  with  all  of  them.  One  had  an 
idea  for  a  portiere,  which  Mr.  La  Farge  had  prom- 
ised to  design;  another  had  a  piece  of  Oriental 
brocade  to  embellish  as  Mr.  Colman  had  sug- 
gested, with  a  working  up  of  some  parts  of  the 
design  with  flosses;  and  in  short,  Mrs.  Pode  was 
overwhelmed  with  ideas,  a  thing  quite  foreign  to 
her  experience  as  a  teacher. 

Meanwhile  our  contributors  were  learning,  as 
were  we,  and  the  enterprise  was  really  a  success. 


YESTERDAYS 

We  went  on  swimmingly  for  a  year.  Boston  had 
established  a  most  successful  auxiliary,  and  some 
of  her  contributors  were  sending  us  meritorious 
examples  of  pottery  and  china.  Chicago  had  a 
wonderfully  successful  society  and  had  sent  to 
England  for  a  second  graduate  of  the  Kensington 
School,  who  had  come  over  to  be  educated  in  her 
turn  in  American  ambitions.  There  were  already 
one  Canadian  and  thirty  American  societies  of 
"Decorative  Art,"  and  the  idea  of  earning  had 
entered  into  the  minds  of  women. 

Unexpected  talent  had  been  developed  in  vari- 
ous directions.  Clever  young  Rosina  Emmet,  the 
first  to  come  to  the  front  of  that  talented  painting 
family,  was  doing  portrait  plaques  of  children 
upon  china,  with  more  orders  than  she  could  fill. 
Some  pupil  of  Mr.  Bennet's,  the  pioneer  teacher 
of  "underglaze"  china  painting  in  the  country, 
sent  in  a  vase  and  cup  each  a  veritable  oasis 
in  the  sandy  waste  of  contributions,  for  the  first 
weekly  examinations  of  our  patient  painter  friends ; 
or  a  piece  of  conscientious  and  clever  needlework 
would  come  from  some  woman,  old  or  young,  who 
knew  her  limitations,  and  did  not  attempt  to  go 
beyond  them. 

One  day  we  received  a  piece  of  needlework 
tapestry  which  might  easily  have  been  born 
hundreds  of  years  ago  in  Dresden  or  any  old 
German  city,  so  far  as  subject,  color,  and  stitchery 
were  concerned ;  and  indeed  the  method  of  it  gave 


SOCIETY    OF    DECORATIVE    ART 

me  an  idea  which  afterward  grew  into  the  ' '  Needle- 
woven  Tapestry  of  the  Associated  Artists."  I  was 
delighted  to  find  it  was  done  by  a  married  daughter 
of  Salmon  P.  Chase,  who  in  her  girlhood  had 
painted  with  me  in  Dresden  and  whom  I  had 
matronized  when  Prussian  and  Saxon  officers  made 
their  very  frequent  afternoon  visits  to  the  studio 
where  we  and  two  other  young  American  girls 
were  painting.  This  especial  girl  is  now  the  dear 
neighbor  who  sits  with  me  in  the  afternoon 
flower-days  of  March  and  April  upon  my  piazza 
at  "Wintergreen,"  and  walks  with  me  between  the 
ranks  of  lilies  that  border  the  four-hundred-feet 
walk  connecting  our  houses.  She  has  kept  her 
art-faculty,  and  I  am  never  tired  of  watching  her 
clever  manipulation  of  material.  The  balustrade 
and  pergola  which  join  her  house  and  studio,  the 
classic  vases  of  the  entrance  steps,  the  sun-dial 
with  its  woodland  sprites  laughing  underneath, 
the  artistic  bridge  over  our  little  burrowing  brook 
— all  these  miracles  fashioned  of  cement  and  sand 
came  into  existence  from  her  wonderfully  creative 
mind  teeming  with  artistic  thought.  What  I  am 
thinking  and  saying  of  my  neighbor  belongs  in 
the  story  of  "Wintergreen,"  and  yet  it  began  long 
ago  with  the  studio  days  in  Dresden. 

The  Society  of  Decorative  Art  was  constantly 

importuned  to  receive    things  which   were    good 

in  their  way,  but  which  did  not  belong  in  the 

category  of  art;  and  here  came  in  the  stumbling- 

223 


YESTERDAYS 

block  born  of  the  mixed  motives  of  our  organiza- 
tion. Philanthropy  and  art  are  not  natural  sisters, 
and  in  the  minds  of  the  majority  of  the  members 
of  our  board  the  art  motive  predominated;  in- 
deed, our  constitution  clearly  committed  us  to 
art.  So  we  wrangled  and  continued  to  wrangle 
over  this  point  of  art  versus  utility.  Our  clever 
English  prototype  had  escaped  this  dilemma  by 
confining  its  efforts  to  a  narrower  range  and  class. 

I  had  favored  from  the  first  a  more  liberal 
plan  of  organization  and  management.  It  was  not 
so  ambitious,  but  it  seemed  to  me  it  would  not 
be  incongruous  and  would  be  of  more  general 
benefit.  So  thought  another  of  our  managers, 
Mrs.  William  Choate,  whose  name  is  written  in 
the  hearts  of  thousands  of  women  whom  she  has 
saved  from  utter  despondency  and  failure.  One 
day  she  came  to  me  with  a  desperate  idea. 

"Will  you  join  me  in  founding  another  society?" 
asked  she.  "There  is  room  for  it;  a  society  where 
a  woman  can  send  a  pie,  if  she  can  make  a  good 
one,  even  though  she  cannot  paint  a  good  picture ; 
or  a  basket  of  eggs  if  she  cannot  decorate  china?" 

My  heart  went  out  to  the  project. 

"But  it  ought  to  be  a  part  of  this  society," 
said  I.  "The  basement  of  this  house  should  be  the 
department  of  utility.  No  one  knows  our  failures 
better  than  I.  We  ought  to  touch  the  whole  round 
of  women's  needs." 

"But  don't  you  see  that  we  can't?"  said  Mrs. 
224 


SOCIETY   OF    DECORATIVE   ART 

Choate.  "And  in  the  mean  time  we  are  all  getting 
at  odds.  Our  art  committee  is  disgusted  with  our 
liberalism,  and  you  and  I  are  impatient  with  our 
illiberality.  I  have  cried  over  it  and  I  have  slept 
over  it,  and  I  can  see  no  other  way  than  to  found 
another  society  which  shall  accept  whatever  a 
woman  can  do  well  and  help  her  dispose  of  it. 
We  will  let  this  one  go  on  its  art  path  without  us." 

I  took  the  matter  home  with  me  and  submitted 
it  to  the  real  woman's  tribunal,  and  the  wise 
judge  decided  that  the  question  was  not  within 
the  limit  of  the  court. 

"You  are  more  hampered  than  Mrs.  Choate," 
said  he.  "You  really  founded  this  society,  and 
you  have  furthered  its  art  in  every  way  by  your 
art  affiliations  and  interests." 

"I  know  it,"  I  answered,  ruefully,  "but  I  did 
not  limit  it.  It  is  as  though  one  side  of  me  were 
pulling  against  the  other.  Why  can't  I  do  both?" 
asked  I,  with  a  sudden  gleam  of  light. 

' '  Because  you  are  only  one  of  a  body  of  women 
every  one  of  whom  sees  only  one  thing."  And 
so  I  got  no  help  from  my  domestic  Solomon. 

Then  I  went  to  wise,  kind  Mrs.  Lane,  and  with 
humiliation  and  deprecation  I  stated  my  case. 

"No  matter  how  you  feel,  my  dear,"  said  she, 
"you  are  truly  the  art  committee  of  the  society, 
and  you  have  led  it  steadily  in  the  direction  of 
art  education,  perhaps  against  your  own  sym- 
pathies." 
15  225 


YESTERDAYS 

"But  I  think  I  shall  go  with  Mrs.  Choate," 
said  I. 

"Think  it  well  over,  and  pray  over  it,"  said 
she,  and  we  parted. 

I  went  to  the  first  meeting  of  the  new  society, 
and  was  enrolled  as  a  charter  member.  We  dis- 
cussed the  question  of  a  title  and  finally  settled 
upon  "The  Woman's  Exchange,"  a  name  which 
I  had  proposed  for  the  "Decorative  Art,"  but 
which  had  been  rejected.  I  felt  as  if  I  had  really 
found  my  child;  up  to  this  time  I  had  been  nurs- 
ing a  changeling. 

For  a  time  it  seemed  to  me  that  my  work  in 
establishing  the  Society  of  Decorative  Art  had 
been  a  failure,  but  I  finally  came  to  see  that  it 
was  the  beginning  of  self-help  among  educated 
women.  Moreover,  it  had  really  broadened  the 
narrow  lives  so  many  had  been  following,  and 
women  had  learned  that  creative  art  was  not  alto- 
gether a  matter  of  instinct,  but  of  study.  Indeed, 
it  was  instrumental  in  sending  Rosina  Emmet  and 
Dora  Wheeler  into  the  studio  of  Mr.  William  Chase 
for  real  training.  It  had  inaugurated  the  idea 
of  self-help  through  remunerative  labor  among 
women,  although  it  had  confined  it  to  the  one 
channel  of  art.  All  other  activities  were  closed 
to  women  of  education  and  refinement  under  the 
penalty  of  "losing  caste."  A  woman  who  painted 
pictures,  or  even  china,  or  who  made  artistic 
embroideries,  might  sell  them  without  being  ab- 
226 


SOCIETY   OF    DECORATIVE   ART 

solutely  shut  out  from  the  circle  in  which  she 
was  born  and  had  been  reared;  but  she  must  not 
supply  things  of  utility — that  was  a  Brahmanical 
law. 

The  "Exchange"  made  no  such  distinction;  a 
woman  of  brains,  industry,  and  opportunity  might 
make  and  sell  whatever  she  could  do  best,  and  yet 
not  lose  her  place.  So  the  bars  which  had  kept 
clever  but  timid  souls  in  bondage  were  taken 
away ;  women  began  to  work  profitably,  and  found 
in  it  the  joy  of  self-help,  of  doing,  and  finally  of 
help  for  the  world.  It  was  the  seed  of  progress, 
sown  in  a  fruitful  and  waiting  soil,  and  it  has 
flowered  into  thousands  of  beautiful  activities 
which  are  becoming,  in  the  stress  of  these  evil 
and  warring  days,  even  great  world  benefits. 

When  I  read  and  hear  of  what  women  are  doing 
to-day  and  contrast  it  with  their  accomplishments 
even  forty  years  ago,  I  wonder  how  far  the  move- 
ment will  go;  I  ask  myself  if  women  will  finally 
take  up  the  regeneration  of  the  world  as  their  part 
of  life's  complex  duties,  leaguing  themselves  against 
"the  devil  and  all  his  works."  It  would  be  a  bad 
day  for  him,  I  think.  And  speaking  of  his  Majesty, 
I  recall  a  delightful  story  told  me  by  a  girl  who 
worked  in  the  first  "settlement"  in  New  York  in 
those  early  days,  a  work  instituted  by  a  saint  who 
was  labeled  Brace.  This  girl  was  giving  a  lesson 
to  a  small  Bible  class,  and  the  constant  mention 
of  Satan  prompted  her  to  ask  what  and  who  the 
227 


YESTERDAYS 

pupils  understood  him  to  be,  to  which  they  re- 
plied promptly  that  he  was  a  "fallen  angel." 

"And  why  was  he  dismissed  from  heaven?" 

There  was  a  long  silence  during  which  the 
teacher  had  time  to  realize  that  she  had  asked 
too  complicated  a  question.  The  silence  was 
broken,  however,  by  a  small  voice  explaining, 
triumphantly : 

"'Coshesassed  God." 

Although  "The  Society  of  Decorative  Art"  did 
not  remain  a  permanent  institution  in  New  York, 
yet  through  its  ten  years'  teaching  and  encourage- 
ment it  made  artistic  needlework  a  profitable  and 
prominent  art  in  America. 

I  will  not  follow  the  progress  of  the  new  society, 
for  its  continued  and  prosperous  existence  in  every 
town  in  America,  and  in  Canada  and  Sweden,  tells 
its  own  story.  It  is  truly  what  it  is  named,  a 
woman's  exchange,  open  to  all  perfected  efforts  of 
women,  and  is  a  living  monument  to  the  woman 
who  founded  and  nurtured  it  through  many 
years.  I  remember  keeping  an  appointment  with 
Mrs.  Choate  for  luncheon  at  the  Exchange  restau- 
rant, when  she  regaled  me  with  one  of  the  most 
delicate  and  delicious  of  individual  chicken  pies. 

"Do  you  know  the  story  of  them?"  she  asked, 
and  forthwith  proceeded  to  tell  it. 

"One  day  a  charming  little  Southern  woman 
came  to  me  with  her  woes.  Her  husband  was  a 
lawyer  and  a  victim  of  our  dreadful  war,  inas- 
228 


SOCIETY    OF    DECORATIVE    ART 

much  as  his  practice  had  entirely  disappeared 
when  he  came  back  to  civil  life.  They  were  young 
people  with  three  children,  and  as  a  last  hope 
they  had  come  to  New  York,  where  he  had  suc- 
cessful college  friends  and  a  promise  of  employ- 
ment. Then  he  had  fallen  desperately  and  linger- 
ingly  ill.  Their  resources  were  exhausted,  and 
what  could  she  do? 

"'What  can  you  do?'  I  asked.  'What  can  you 
you  do  welir 

"'Nothing,'  and  the  discouraged  mouth  quiv- 
ered. 'I  am  only  half -educated.  Of  course  I  can 
play  a  little,  and  sing  a  little,  and  dance  a  little, 
but  I  never  was  properly  taught  anything.' 

"'Think!'  I  went  on.  'Can  you  sew,  can  you 
even  darn  stockings  better  than  any  one  else?' 

"She  shook  her  head  ruefully,  and  said,  with  a 
half -sad  little  smile:  'You  should  see  my  chil- 
dren's stockings!  They  are  all  puckered  up!' 

'"Can  you  cook?'  I  asked. 

"Her  face  brightened.  'I  can  make  the  best 
chicken  pies  in  North  Carolina!'  said  she,  en- 
thusiastically. 

"'Very  well,  then,'  I  said.  'You  go  home  and 
make  chicken  pies.  I  will  get  you  an  advance 
from  our  lending-fund  and  you  send  here  to- 
morrow, before  twelve,  a  dozen  small  chicken 
pies,  just  about  what  one  hungry  person  can  eat.' 

"'They  can  eat  a  good  deal  of  my  pie,'  said  the 
little  Southerner,  proudly,  and  the  next  morning 
229 


YESTERDAYS 

promptly  came  the  pies.  Heavenly  pies!  One 
lady  ate  two,  and  the  next  day  two  dozen  were 
ordered,  and  the  next  day  six.  The  demand  grew, 
and  kept  up,  and  the  Exchange  chicken  pies  were 
ordered  from  outside  houses.  And  now  the  South- 
ern husband  is  well  and  in  a  prominent  office, 
and  the  children  are  in  school — with  new  stock- 
ings— and  still  the  pies  are  made,  for  the  Exchange 
lunch-room  depends  upon  them  for  half  its  patron- 
age. And  that  is  the  story  of  the  chicken  pies." 
I  did  not  take  an  active  part  in  the  daily  work 
of  the  Woman's  Exchange,  for  my  time  was  too 
fully  occupied  in  other  directions,  but  I  have  never 
ceased  to  pray  for  its  peace  and  prosperity. 


IX 

"THE  ASSOCIATED  ARTISTS" 

I  HAD  a  sorrowful  few  weeks  before  I  could  quite 
cut  loose  from  my  beloved  work  in  the  ' '  Deco- 
rative Art."  Every  one  disapproved  of  me.  I 
remember  the  stony  glare  of  Mrs.  John  Jacob 
Astor  when  I  tried  to  explain  my  defection;  but 
one  day  after  a  meeting  of  the  Committee  of  Ad- 
missions, Mr.  Tiffany  told  me  he  had  sent  in  his 
resignation. 

"It  is  all  nonsense,  this  work,"  he  said.  "There 
is  no  real  bottom  to  it.  You  can't  educate  people 
without  educational  machinery,  and  there  is  so 
much  discussion  about  things  of  which  there  is 
really  no  question.  My  wife  says  she  cannot 
afford  to  have  me  so  stirred  up  every  Wednesday, 
but  I  have  been  thinking  a  great  deal  about  deco- 
rative work,  and  I  am  going  into  it  as  a  profession. 
I  believe  there  is  more  in  it  than  in  painting  pict- 
ures." So  spoke  the  son  of  the  builder  of  the  great 
house  of  Tiffany. 

"What  kind  of  decorative  work?"  I  asked. 

"Why,  various  kinds.  Colman  and  DeForest 
231 


YESTERDAYS 

and  I  are  going  to  make  a  combination  for  interior 
decoration  of  all  sorts.  I  shall  work  out  some 
ideas  I  have  in  glass.  DeForest  is  going  to  India 
to  look  up  carved  woods,  and  Colman  will  look 
after  color  and  textiles.  You  had  better  join  us. 
It  is  the  real  thing,  you  know;  a  business,  not  a 
philanthropy  or  an  amateur  educational  scheme. 
We  are  going  after  the  money  there  is  in  art,  but 
the  art  is  there,  all  the  same.  If  your  husband 
will  let  you,  you  had  better  join  us  and  take  up 
embroidery  and  decorative  needlework.  There 
are  great  possibilities  in  it." 

This  was  very  alluring,  and  again  I  consulted 
the  home  court,  and  again  the  decision  had  to  rest 
with  me. 

"You  must  remember,"  said  my  husband, 
"that  Mr.  Tiffany  told  you  it  was  going  into  busi- 
ness, and  business  has  its  laws  which  you  may  not 
like;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  you  have  an  instinct 
for  art,  and  a  good  business  head — like  Tiffany," 
he  added,  "and  it  would  give  you  opportunities 
which  would  not  interfere  with  home  as  much  as 
the  'Society'  has,  I  fancy." 

My  husband  and  I  had  come  to  the  time  which 
sooner  or  later  comes  to  every  family.  Domestic 
life  was  no  longer  crowding  us.  The  dear  eldest 
whose  interests  had  continued  so  long  a  part  of 
my  own  was  no  longer  with  us.  The  oldest  boy 
was  out  in  the  world  and  the  youngest  at  school. 
There  was  no  actual  occupation  for  me  at  home, 
232 


"THE    ASSOCIATED    ARTISTS" 

and  I  was  still  young  enough  to  demand  an  active 
interest  in  life,  something  to  do  in  the  world,  and 
my  husband  was  wise  enough  and  broad-minded 
enough  to  see  it.  I  had  formally  resigned  my 
"Society"  work,  keeping,  I  was  sure,  the  cordial 
friendship  of  Mrs.  Lane  and  many  of  my  co- 
workers,  as  well  as  the  warm  affection  of  my  dear 
associate,  Mrs.  Custer.  I  promised  Mrs.  Choate 
full  co-operation  in  the  Woman's  Exchange,  al- 
though my  time  must  be  devoted  to  another 
purpose. 

But  to  return  to  my  own  experiences.  There 
were  the  preliminaries  of  a  business  combination, 
so  novel  to  me  as  to  be  most  interesting.  My 
three  new  associates  acquiesced  in  my  suggestion 
that  we  should  be  called  "The  Associated  Artists" 
instead  of  "Louis  C.  Tiffany  Co.,"  which  was  at 
first  suggested.  Of  course,  it  was  the  Louis  C. 
Tiffany  Co.,  but  it  was  equally  an  association  of 
artists  and  we  agreed  to  work  together  under  that 
name. 

Our  very  first  order  was  the  making  of  an  em- 
broidered drop-curtain  for  the  new  Madison  Square 
Theater,  and  this  enlisted  us  all — Mr.  Tiffany  for 
design  and  all  sorts  of  ingenious  expedients  as  to 
method;  Mr.  Colman  casting  the  deciding  vote 
upon  the  question  of  color;  Mr.  DeForest  looking 
up  materials,  and  I  directing  the  actual  execution. 
The  curtain  was  really  a  landscape  effect  done 
in  textiles,  for  all  sorts  of  materials  came  into 
233  I 


YESTERDAYS 

use,  velvet  and  plushes  for  trees  and  great-leaved 
plants  in  the  foreground,  shadowy  silks  for  per- 
spectives, and  bits  of  misty  blue  distance  in  iri- 
descent stuffs  of  any  material  which  would  pro- 
duce illusion  or  give  the  required  effect.  It  was 
too  positive  and  realistic  for  tapestry,  but  it  was 
beautiful  and  it  answered  its  double  purpose  of 
advertising  both  the  new  theater  and  the  new 
enterprise.  Unfortunately,  it  took  fire  and  went 
up  in  smoke  before  the  season  was  over,  but  we 
replaced  it  with  an  improved  copy.  I  had  learned 
a  lesson  in  the  use  of  applied  materials  and  large 
effects,  which  could  be  adapted  to  many  beautiful 
uses. 

Mr.  Tiffany  was  certainly  a  very  inspiring  and 
suggestive  associate  in  art,  and  he  had  the  reck- 
lessness of  genius  when  it  came  to  ways  and  means. 
I  remember  a  very  beautiful  piece  of  work  done 
in  the  workrooms  which  interested  him  greatly, 
because  of  an  unscrupulous  use  of  every  stitch 
possible  to  that  little  polished  instrument  which 
Adam  probably  invented  for  Eve  when  she  sewed 
fig-leaves  together  in  the  Garden  of  Eden.  The 
thing  he  so  greatly  admired  was  a  two-leaved 
velvet  screen  of  no  positive  color  covered  with 
beautifully  wrought  roses  of  all  colors;  and  these 
masses  were  softened  into  the  background  by 
long  darning  stitches  and  webs,  such  as  our  grand- 
mothers used,  when  darning  was  an  art,  in  mend- 
ing large  holes  in  boys'  stockings.  This  particular 
234 


"THE    ASSOCIATED    ARTISTS*' 

expedient  charmed  Mr.  Tiffany,  and  he  watched 
the  work  of  the  clever  girl  who  composed  and 
worked  it  with  great  interest.  One  day  he  missed 
her. 

"Where  is  Miss  Tounshend?"  he  asked. 

"Gone  to  her  lesson  in  water-color  at  the 
Academy,"  I  answered;  and  then,  seeing  a  rather 
disturbed  look  upon  his  face,  I  asked,  "Don't  you 
think  it  will  be  an  advantage  to  her  embroidery?" 

"No,"  said  he,  positively.  "I  would  rather 
have  her  think  in  crewels." 

The  subtlety  of  this  expression  charmed  me,  as 
did  also  a  linked  word  he  used  descriptive  of  color 
effect.  We  were  looking  at  the  ceiling  of  his  new 
private  studio,  which  was  low  and  white  and 
broken  into  unequal  masses  by  the  roof  gables. 

"What  will  you  do  with  it?"  I  asked,  for  it 
seemed  to  me  a  formidable  problem. 

Mr.  Tiffany  wrinkled  his  brows.  "I  think," 
said  he,  meditatively,  "I  shall  paint  it  a  light 
black.'' 

Of  course,  this  meant  blotting  out  its  variations, 
but  it  was  so  picturesquely  worded. 

But  the  girl  whose  mental  processes  he  wished 
to  curtail  went  on  thinking  in  very  wide  circles, 
for  she  was  one  of  those  to  whom  things  are 
secondary,  and  only  valuable  as  they  can  express 
thought. 

For  one  season  Mr.  Frank  Millet  was  with  us 
in  our  united  work;  he  had  just  returned  from 
235 


YESTERDAYS 

Europe,  where  he  had  been  acting  as  special  cor- 
respondent of  the  London  Times,  serving  in  that 
capacity  through  the  Crimean  War.  Now  he  had 
returned  to  his  first  love — painting — and  for  a 
time  he  assisted  Mr.  Tiffany  in  his  decorative 
experiments.  Any  one  who  knew  that  genial, 
warm-hearted  man,  at  any  time  of  his  life,  will 
realize  how  his  practical  knowledge  tempered  our 
enthusiasms  and  how  valuable  was  his  companion- 
ship. One-thoughted  people  need  the  influence 
of  a  difference  in  temperament  among  them  to 
keep  them  from  growing  queer. 

We  worked  along  very  happily  together  in  the 
lofts  on  Fourth  Avenue,  which  were  our  quarters. 
At  the  top  were  the  glass  rooms  where  Mr.  Tif- 
fany's experiments  in  color  went  on  and  where 
he  was  working  out  his  problems  from  bits  of  old 
iridescent  Roman  vases  which  had  lain  centuries 
underground ;  or  finding  out  the  secrets  of  tints  in 
ancient  cathedral  windows,  and  the  proportions 
of  metals  and  chemicals  which  would  produce 
certain  shades  of  color.  The  actual  melting  and 
mixing  was  done  in  the  laboratory  underneath  his 
own  apartments,  far  up  on  Fifth  Avenue,  but  the 
results  of  the  study  and  effects  of  juxtaposition 
were  tried  in  the  "glass  loft." 

Something  akin  to  this  went  on  in  the  em- 
broidery-rooms, where  silks  were  being  brought 
together  in  wonderful  combination,  with  examples 
of  the  effects  which  time  and  artistic  effort  had 
236 


"THE    ASSOCIATED    ARTISTS" 

produced  in  textiles.  These  were  carefully  studied, 
and  through  them  we  were  making  constant  ex- 
periments in  beauty,  and  I  found  great  content 
in  our  success.  After  a  few  years,  however,  the 
loft  became  too  general  a  place  for  our  work,  and 
my  husband  bought  a  large  old-fashioned  house 
on  Twenty- third  Street,  not  far  removed  from 
the  studios  of  our  general  work,  and  fashioned  it 
to  our  requirements. 

The  development  of  design  and  weaving  of 
textiles  became  one  of  my  chief  ambitions;  first, 
through  the  practical  need  of  draperies  which 
should  worthily  accompany  the  glass  and  carved 
woods  of  Mr.  Tiffany  and  Mr.  DeForest ;  and  sec- 
ondly, because  of  a  feeling  that  it  was  a  desirable 
profession  for  women  and  a  profitable  outlet  for 
their  artistic  talents.  The  art  schools  of  the 
Cooper  Union,  the  Artist  Artisans,  and  other  in- 
stitutions were  training  a  large  body  of  girls  in 
drawing,  but  there  was  no  apparent  encourage- 
ment for  them  as  painters. 

Through  our  requirements  for  suitable  textiles 
for  decorative  use,  I  had  discovered  that,  although 
there  were  silks  in  abundance  woven  in  America, 
and  extremely  good  in  quality,  they  were  either 
without  design  or,  as  was  the  case  in  printed 
silks,  the  designs  were  borrowed  or  copied  from 
silks  manufactured  in  other  countries  and  more  or 
less  meaningless  in  connection  with  serious  artistic 
work.  Every  silk-manufacturer  sent  his  buyer 
237 


YESTERDAYS 

abroad  to  collect  specimens  of  the  product  of  each 
season;  and,  after  a  German  draftsman  had 
adapted  the  design  to  American  looms,  they  were 
woven  or  printed  here  and  sold  as  English  or 
French,  instead  of  American,  silks. 

We  had  no  original  American  design  in  tex- 
tiles, embroideries,  or  even  in  wall-papers;  con- 
sequently, our  printings  and  weavings  were  sold 
as  imported  ones.  I  could  not  see  why  American 
manufactures  should  be  without  American  char- 
acteristics any  more  than  other  forms  of  art.  Art 
applied  to  manufacture  should  have  its  root  in  its 
own  country — so  I  thought,  at  least. 

The  designs  made  by  the  artists  who  had  come 
to  our  aid  in  the  Society  of  Decorative  Art  had 
immediately  taken  the  place  of  the  Kensington 
designs  brought  from  England  by  Mrs.  Pode, 
because  they  appealed  to  our  sense  of  beauty, 
both  in  spirit  and  in  subject;  and  I  believed  the 
same  thing  would  be  true  of  printed  ornamenta- 
tion. The  Messrs.  Frank  and  Knight  Cheney, 
the  second  generation  of  the  Cheney  Brothers, 
and  then  at  the  head  of  the  great  silk-mills  in 
South  Manchester,  had  already  taken  an  interest 
in  the  subject  of  national  design,  and  they  helped 
us  in  most  effective  ways,  making  use  of  native 
artistic  work  in  their  prints  and  brocades.  In- 
deed, we  felt  always  in  their  production  that  we 
were  working  in  concert. 

It  was  not  long  before  our  design-room  was  an 
238 


:'THE    ASSOCIATED    ARTISTS" 

important  part  of  our  equipment.  Every  girl  in 
it  was  there  because  she  knew  how  to  draw  and 
had  a  special  faculty  for  composition.  I  talked 
to  them  twice  a  week  on  the  spirit  as  well  as  the 
technique  of  design,  and  once  a  week  I  lectured  to 
classes  of  the  Institute  of  Artist  Artisans;  my 
thought  of  truly  American  design  was  not  con- 
fined to  textiles. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  firm  of  Warren  & 
Fuller — paper-manufacturers — offered  two  thou- 
sand dollars  in  prizes  for  the  best  four  designs  for 
wall-paper,  and  I  suggested  that  we  should  com- 
pete for  them.  This  meant  new  studyin  adaptation, 
the  use  of  different  mediums,  and  due  regard  to 
the  limitations  of  printing-machines ;  it  also  meant, 
or  should  have  meant,  new  materials  in  the  way 
of  paper  and  pigments;  but  of  these  small  mat- 
ters we  were  ignorant,  and  consequently  we  went 
bravely  to  the  work  of  competition,  mixing  our 
water-colors  with  plenty  of  Chinese  white  for 
body,  and  cutting  our  drawing-paper  to  proper 
lengths  for  repeats.  We  sent  in  four  designs  at 
the  time  and  to  the  place  appointed,  and  forgot 
about  them  until  we  saw  a  notice  of  the  exhibi- 
tion of  the  "Warren  &  Fuller  Competitive  De- 
signs" at  the  American  Art  Gallery.  Of  course 
we  went  to  see  them. 

The  judges  were  three  prominent  architects, 
and  there  was  a  roomful  of  exhibits,  most  of 
which  were  German,  and  all  of  them  so  carefully 
239 


YESTERDAYS 

made   as    to   look    precisely  like   printed   wall- 
papers. 

We  found  our  four  placed  together,  somewhat 
removed  from  the  others,  and  we  acknowledged 
to  ourselves  that  they  suffered  by  comparison 
with  the  technique  of  the  general  exhibit. 

"I  don't  care!"  said  I.  "I  like  them  the  best 
so  far  as  meaning  goes,"  and  we  went  back  to 
the  absorbing  interests  of  our  daily  work  without 
another  thought  of  our  designs. 

Some  days  later  "Mr.  Warren's"  card  was 
brought  me  and  I  went  down  to  see  whoever  it 
might  be,  not  connecting  him  with  the  competition. 
I  found  a  tall  and  very  polite  stranger  who,  after 
ascertaining  that  I  was  the  Mrs.  Wheeler  he  was 
in  search  of,  informed  me  that  my  design  of 
bees  and  clover  had  received  the  Warren-Fuller 
thousand-dollar  prize.  He  proceeded  further  to 
inquire  if  Miss  Dora  Wheeler  could  be  seen,  and 
when  she  came  informed  her  with  equal  ceremony 
that  Miss  Dora  Wheeler  had  received  the  five- 
hundred-dollar  prize  offered  for  the  second-best 
Warren-Fuller  composition.  Before  we  had  time 
to  breathe  he  went  on  to  read  the  remaining  names : 
"Miss  Tounshend,  third  prize." 

"Why,  she  also  is  one  of  us!"  I  exclaimed. 

"Miss  Ida  Clarke,  fourth  prize." 

"Why,  she  is  one  of  us,  too!  Do  you  mean  that 
we  have  taken  all  the  prizes?" 

"Yes,  that  is  the  case,"  he  answered. 
240 


"THE   ASSOCIATED   ARTISTS" 

"Then  I  am  justified,"  said  I.  "I  am  on  the 
right  track." 

Mr.  Warren  bowed  again.  "We  think  you  are," 
said  he,  "and  our  judges  have  decided  that  you 
are." 

After  he  had  gone  we  sat  down  to  realize  what 
had  happened. 

"It  was  the  thought  we  put  into  it,  my  dear 
girls,"  I  began.  "It  simply  shows  that  design 
needs  something  more  than  just  technique." 

"Wise  mother,"  scoffed  my  girl,  "did  any  one 
suppose  that  Walter  Crane  or  William  Morris 
came  to  the  top  because  they  possessed  tech- 
nique?" Thereupon  we  adjourned  to  the  studio 
and  had  the  whole  class  in  design  to  tea. 

I  had  always  felt  that  Walter  Crane  was 
the  foremost  designer  of  that  group  of  men  who 
brought  England  into  a  prominent  place  in  applied 
art  during  the  last  days  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
His  designs  stood  by  themselves  in  certain  quali- 
ties of  grace  and  appropriateness,  and  when  I 
found  that  he  was  coming  to  America  I  was  keen 
to  meet  him.  I  think  his  object  in  coming  was 
to  really  see  what  we  were  doing  in  America.  An 
exhibition  of  American  art  work  in  London  in 
1900  had  excited  a  great  deal  of  interest,  together 
with  some  critical  and  comparative  comment 
which  was  not  altogether  favorable  to  English 
art.  It  was  an  exhibit  of  pictures,  etchings, 
stained  glass,  textiles,  and  tapestries  of  "The 

16  241 


YESTERDAYS 

Associated  Artists,"  and  embroidery  from  many 
sources;  it  seemed  to  me  a  most  worthy  collec- 
tion, one  which  would  excite  interest  anywhere. 
At  all  events,  I  think  it  brought  this  distinguished 
man  over  to  look  at  what  we  were  doing  in  art 
and  manufacture. 

We  were  asked  to  meet  him  at  the  house  and 
studio  of  David  French  and  were  promised  some 
talk  from  him.  It  was  a  very  interesting  assembly 
of  sculptors,  painters,  and  art  leaders  in  all  lines 
of  industrial  art,  a  cheerful  gathering  of  nodding 
heads  and  friendly  greetings,  for  everybody  knew 
everybody  and  all  were  pleased  to  come  together 
in  honor  of  a  man  who  had  made  his  mark  in 
modern  art. 

He  proved  to  be  a  rather  reticent,  far-away- 
looking  man  who  blinked  at  this  friendly  crowd 
as  if  he  had  stepped  from  shadow  into  sunshine. 

After  his  first  few  hesitating  sentences  he  seemed 
to  find  a  familiar  path,  that  of  teacher,  and,  un- 
folding a  printed  handkerchief  as  if  it  were  a 
chart,  he  proceeded  to  initiate  us  into  the  first 
principles  of  decorative  design,  alternation  and 
repetition,  precisely  as  if  we  were  a  lot  of  school- 
children being  taught  to  square  and  fill  spaces. 
He  illustrated  his  lesson  by  folding  his  printed 
handkerchief  into  squares  large  enough  to  hold 
a  stereotyped  little  flower  with  two  lateral  leaves 
and  a  round-headed  blossom  above  them,  which 
he  drew  upon  a  blackboard,  and  he  showed  us  how 
242 


'THE    ASSOCIATED  ARTISTS" 

it  could  be  used  without  parallelism  by  filling 
alternate  spaces  in  different  rows.  The  situation 
was  so  funny  that  it  was  enjoyable.  This  famous 
artist  teaching  people  whose  lives  were  filled  with 
visions  of  beauty  and  ideas  of  grace  and  perfec- 
tion exemplified  in  his  own  work  the  A-B-C 
checker-board  of  composition !  We  looked  at  one 
another  with  joy  while  the  lecturer  was  fingering 
his  pocket-handkerchief. 

When  it  was  over,  and  we  were  being  introduced 
and  named,  a  blink  of  recognition  would  occa- 
sionally appear  on  his  face  and  a  reluctant  hand 
would  be  offered  in  greeting.  But  it  was  a  hand 
which  had  done  notable  work  for  the  great  angel 
of  the  world — beauty — and  I  for  one  was  glad  to 
meet  its  touch.  Taken  altogether,  it  was  a  very 
unreal  experience,  like  live  things  in  a  fog,  but 
it  did  not  in  the  least  abate  my  enthusiasm  for 
the  god  within  the  cloud — I  knew  it  was  there. 

Mr.  William  Chase,  in  whose  studio  Dora  and 
her  friends  Rosina  and  Lydia  Emmet  were  study- 
ing, had  just  at  that  time  returned  from  a  long 
and  ardent  apprenticeship  to  art  in  Munich.  He 
was  an  inspiring  teacher,  and  these  girls  were  his 
first  pupils.  I  think  he  looked  upon  himself  as 
an  apostle  of  new  truth  in  art  in  this  country, 
and  he  certainly  was  the  first  who  painted  with 
the  breadth  and  freedom  which  have  grown  to 
be  the  habit  of  modern  painting. 

Mr.  Chase  had  taken  the  large  central  studio 
243 


YESTERDAYS 

in  the  Tenth  Street  building  which  had  been  used 
by  Launt  Thompson  during  previous  years,  and 
where  we  had  seen  his  gods  emerge  from  clay  and 
stand  in  plaster  or  marble  in  the  empty  spaces  of 
the  great  room.  The  studio  was  filled  with  life 
and  color,  and  all  sorts  of  rare  and  odd  bits  of 
furnishing  made  points  of  interest  in  the  room. 
The  door  opened  with  long-drawn  musical  ca- 
dences from  some  attachment  fashioned  there  to 
sound  whenever  the  door  opened  or  closed,  and 
there  were  enticing  groups  of  old  silk  hangings, 
and  silvery  brocades,  and  cabinets  filled  with  the 
"truck"  which  all  painters  love.  I  remember  over 
all  the  intervening  years  a  horrible  little  human 
head,  no  bigger  than  an  orange  and  brown  with 
the  transparent  brownness  of  the  dark  races. 
Some  ingenious  savage  had  extracted  the  skull 
and  bones  and  had  inserted  bits  of  dark-red  bottle 
glass  for  eyes,  carefully  preserving  the  long  black 
hair  and  scanty  beard,  and  with  devilish  dexterity 
shaping  and  smoothing  the  features  until  it  was 
a  fearsome  shred  of  humanity.  But  Mr.  Chase 
delighted  in  it. 

There  was  a  black  greyhound  whose  name  was 
Fly,  who  belonged  on  a  yellow-striped  tiger-skin, 
but  would  not  stay  there,  and  two  rainbow- 
colored  parakeets  chained  to  their  cross-shaped 
stands,  animated  flakes  of  scarlet  and  blue  and 
green,  shrieking  out  a  gabble  of  half -human  salu- 
tation at  strangers. 

244 


"THE   ASSOCIATED   ARTISTS" 

One  summer  we  had  them  at "  Nestledown"  while 
Mr.  Chase  was  abroad,  and  they  kept  us  alive 
with  anxiety  when  one  or  the  other  would  pick 
open  the  iron  ring  which  held  its  chain  to  the 
stand  and,  after  a  little  dalliance  with  things  in 
the  garden,  spread  its  great  wings  and  go  flash- 
ing into  a  tall  fir-tree.  As  a  stable-boy  followed 
it  up  the  convenient  rounds  of  ladder-like  branches 
it  would  mount,  gabbling,  to  the  very  top,  where 
a  slim  feather  of  green  spread  itself  against  the 
sky.  Then  the  hanging  chain  would  come  within 
reach  of  the  boy's  hand  and  the  iridescent  Polly 
would  be  hauled  squawking  to  earth,  to  be  shut 
up  in  the  stable  while  the  ring  of  iron  could  be 
closed  again. 

Mr.  Chase  was  the  most  generous  of  teachers, 
not  only  giving  exhaustively  of  his  stored  knowl- 
edge of  how  to  do  things,  but  fostering  as  well 
the  will  to  do  it.  Later,  somewhat  against  his 
will,  he  was  persuaded  to  take  charge  of  an  art- 
school  at  Shinnecock  Hills,  Long  Island,  and  in 
this  somewhat  unwelcome  tutelage  he  learned  as 
well  as  taught.  He  discovered  that  he  had  the 
teaching  quality,  which  consists,  I  think,  in  en- 
thusiasm for  the  subject.  When  the  enthusiasm 
is  shared  by  the  pupils  it  creates  a  sort  of  electric 
energy  which  has  great  results. 

The  success  of  this  school  of  art  meant  much 
to  Mr.  Chase,  and  resulted  in  a  body  of  young 
artists  trained  to  work  as  he  worked,  with  simple 
245 


YESTERDAYS 

directness.  His  peculiar  excellences,  both  as 
painter  and  teacher,  soon  became  widely  known. 
His  bits  of  garden  landscape  and  studies  of  still 
life  were  wonderful  accomplishments,  showing 
that  difficult  combination  of  breadth  and  inten- 
sity which  is  the  aim  of  modern  painters. 

I  have  a  large  picture  which  he  called  "The 
Sea-Serpent, "  where  the  creature  lies  coiled  in  an 
iridescent  mass  upon  a  wide  ash-colored  spread 
of  beach,  with  the  blue  of  a  summer  sea  stretching 
away  into  the  sky  background,  one  little  blot  of 
blood  upon  the  fin  giving  the  principle  of  life  and 
the  element  of  tragedy  to  the  picture.  This  rare 
faculty  of  combination  on  one  canvas  of  the 
values  of  color  was  not  often  apparent  in  Mr. 
Chase's  portraits;  he  probably  had  an  instinct 
that  personality  would  be  lost  in  combination 
with  triumphs  of  color. 

Mr.  Chase  had  a  passion  for  the  beauty  of 
textiles,  and  when  "The  Associated  Artists"  came 
to  their  days  of  experiments  in  color  he  often 
dropped  in  to  see  what  had  been  done  that  was 
new  to  him;  and  he  was  never  tired  of  watching 
the  variations  of  color  in  some  specimen  of  shadow- 
silks  when  every  change  of  position  brought  out 
the  design  of  the  textile  in  a  new  aspect.  I  re- 
member his  saying,  "You  can  do  more  with  silk 
than  we  can  with  pigments,  because  it  reflects 
color  as  well  as  holds  it."  Alma  Tadema  said 
exactly  the  same  thing  when  I  showed  him  our 
246 


"THE   ASSOCIATED   ARTISTS" 

shadow-silks  the  summer  we  spent  in  England  at 
Broadway. 

Dear  Mr.  Chase!  His  singleness  of  purpose  and 
supreme  love  of  art  carried  him  far  on  the  road 
which  all  true  artists  travel  in  whatever  line  their 
faculty  may  lead:  the  road  to  the  highest  and  to 
the  perfection  of  their  particular  choice  of  beauty. 

When  I  heard  only  last  year  that  his  quest  in 
this  life  was  over,  I  remembered  gratefully  the 
helping  hand  he  had  always  held  out  to  me  and 
mine  along  the  road  he  so  earnestly  traveled. 
Each  chose  his  own  path,  but  the  goal  is  the  same 
— the  truth  that  is  beauty. 

His  friendship  with  Dora  was  an  enduring  one, 
and  I  append  one  of  his  characteristic  letters : 

MY  DEAR  Miss  WHEELER,— This  is  only  a  line  to  tell  you 
I  am  here  and  to  say  how  much  I  am  enjoying  everything  to 
be  found  here.  The  old  gallery  of  pictures  is  simply  mag- 
nificent. Velasquez  is  the  greatest  painter  that  ever  lived. 
How  you  would  enjoy  the  pictures  by  him  here;  I  am  sure 
you  would  be  inspired  and  encouraged.  Velasquez  is  not 
like  many  of  the  great  painters;  he  never  discourages  any 
one.  On  the  contrary  he  makes  you  feel  everything  is  pos- 
sible for  one  to  accomplish.  I  do  hope  you  are  in  a  mood  for 
work  and  are  doing  something.  Don't  forget  that  you  will 
be  at  your  best  when  you  consult  your  own  pleasure  about 
what  you  are  to  do.  Everything  is  delightful  here,  except 
the  weather,  which  is  a  trifle  too  warm,  and  the  bull-fights, 
which  are  simply  terrible.  I  have  attended  several,  and 
each  time  have  been  so  horrified  that  I  have  vowed  I  would 
not  go  again.  I  have  told  you  enough  about  painters  and 
pictures,  and  now  a  word  about  the  incumbrances,  old  Fly 
and  the  birds.  I  was  so  hurried  when  I  came  to  leave  that 
247 


YESTERDAYS 

I  could  not  find  time  to  bring  them  myself.  I  therefore  left 
word  with  Daniel  to  take  them  to  you.  I  hope  they  don't 
give  you  too  much  trouble.  If  you  find  them  an  annoyance 
please  send  them  to  some  board  place  until  I  return.  I  will 
most  likely  leave  for  home  on  the  loth  of  September  and 
arrive  about  the  226.;  until  then,  Good-by.  Please  remember 
me  kindly  to  your  Mamma  and  all  the  family. 
Most  respectfully, 

WILLIAM  N.  CHASE. 

It  was  while  the  two  girls,  Miss  Rosina  Emmet 
and  our  daughter  Dora,  were  studying  in  Mr. 
Chase's  studio  that  the  Christmas  card  became 
dignified  by  the  attention  of  artists.  The  original 
ones  were  published  by  Mr.  Louis  Prang,  of 
Boston,  who  will  long  be  remembered  for  his 
successful  efforts  in  color  printing.  Mr.  Prang's 
idea  was  the  perfecting  of  the  process  of  repro- 
ducing paintings,  whether  oil  or  water-color,  in 
the  exact  tints  and  values  of  the  originals.  It  was 
a  subject  of  great  interest  to  painters,  and  the 
progress  of  it  was  carefully  watched  by  them. 
Perhaps  there  mingled  with  their  scientific  and 
artistic  interest  something  of  the  solicitude  which 
was  felt  by  portraitists  when  Daguerre  caught  and 
fixed  the  beautiful  sun  drawing  which  has  made 
his  name  a  part  of  common  English  speech. 

I  think  the  very  first  successful  picture  done 
by  the  Prang  process  was  also  Albert  Bierstadt's 
first  successful  picture — one  which  had  brought 
him  prominently  before  the  public.  It  was  called 
"Sunlight  and  Shadow,"  a  picture  about  eighteen 
248 


"THE    ASSOCIATED    ARTISTS" 

by  twenty,  of  an  old  cathedral  front,  the  gray 
facade  mottled  by  the  shadow  leaves  and  branches 
of  a  great  tree.  You  saw,  not  the  tree,  but  the 
shadow,  and  on  the  steps  sat  a  tired  bowed  figure 
of  an  old  woman  in  a  red  mantle,  the  only  note 
of  brilliant  color  in  the  picture.  It  was  an  ex- 
tremely well-rendered  mixture  of  reality  and  senti- 
ment, and  the  Prang  copy  did  it  justice.  To  have 
one  of  them  hanging  on  the  wall,  carefully  framed, 
came  near  to  having  a  "Bierstadt,"  so  the  process 
was  a  complete  success.  This  was  followed  by 
John  Wier's  "Christmas  Bell,"  a  delightful  com- 
position of  sprites  clustered  upon  a  bell-rope  in  the 
gray  of  Christmas  morning.  Then  came  others 
in  quick  succession.  Mr.  Prang's  tall,  lean  figure 
and  quaint  speech  were  well  known  in  studios,  for 
wherever  successful  figure  pictures  were  to  be 
seen  there  was  Mr.  Prang. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  he  evolved  the  idea 
of  printing  Christmas  cards  of  superior  excellence 
both  as  pictures  and  as  prints,  so  as  to  commend 
themselves  to  everybody.  Adequate  subjects  for 
these  cards  were  not  plentiful,  and  to  stimulate 
the  supply  Mr.  Prang  offered  such  tempting 
prizes  for  small  pictures  of  merit  as  to  enlist 
general  effort  among  painters.  Distinguished  ar- 
tists were  chosen  for  judges,  and  exhibition  was 
made  of  all  pictures  sent  in.  The  prizes  were  one 
thousand  dollars,  five  hundred  dollars,  and  three 
hundred  dollars,  for  the  best  three  oil  or  water- 
249 


YESTERDAYS 

color  pictures,  six  by  eight  inches  in  size,  and  of 
suitable  design.  These  first  three  prizes  were  won, 
respectively,  by  the  very  prominent  Mr.  Vedder, 
by  young  and  clever  Rosina  Emrnet  (who  had 
graduated  from  the  painting  of  china  plaques  to 
the  painting  of  pictures),  and  by  Dora  Wheeler. 

The  competition  for  Christmas  cards  was  a 
great  incitement  to  both  the  girls,  and  their  al- 
most unexpected  successes  were  a  matter  of  joy 
and  pride  to  them  and  their  friends.  After  this, 
we  saw  much  of  Mr.  Prang,  who  watched  the 
progress  in  art  of  the  two  girls  with  great  interest. 
I  think  he  would  have  had  keen  enjoyment  in 
knowing  that  when  the  three  girls — Rosina  and 
Lydia  Emmet  and  Dora  Wheeler — were  studying 
together  in  Julien's  classes  in  Paris  they  found 
that  their  sketches  from  the  subjects  given  out 
on  Saturdays  for  composition  almost  invariably 
brought  the  coveted  No.  i  to  one  of  the  three; 
they  used  to  be  cross-examined  by  some  of  the 
French  students  who  had  worked  in  the  atelier 
for  a  much  longer  period. 

"Where  did  you  study  composition?"  they  were 
asked. 

"Where  did  we?"  they  smiled  to  one  another, 
and  then  "Prang's  prize  Christmas  cards!"  they 
said,  almost  together.  „ 

It  was  not  long  after  the  first  competition 
that  Mr.  Prang  unfolded  to  us  his  project  for  a 
second,  which  was  to  make  a  tempting  lure  for 
250 


"THE    ASSOCIATED    ARTISTS" 

the  best  artists.  The  idea  was  to  offer  two  first 
prizes  to  be  awarded  by  vote  of  visitors  to  the 
exhibition,  the  first  prize  of  two  thousand  dollars 
to  go  to  the  card  receiving  the  greatest  number  of 
votes  of  artists,  and  the  second  of  one  thousand 
dollars  to  go  to  the  card  which  received  the  greatest 
number  of  popular  votes.  There  were  to  be  three 
degrees  of  excellence,  with  three  respective  prizes 
as  before. 

"You  will  get  an  amusing  card  on  the  popular 
vote,"  I  said,  when  the  plan  was  explained  to  me. 
Mr.  Prang  smiled  with  the  look  of  a  reserved 
opinion,  and  said  in  his  slow,  careful  English: 

"You  would  be  surprised,  would  you  not,  if  the 
same  card  was  chosen  by  both?" 

"Yes,  greatly  surprised!"  I  answered,  glibly 
and  without  the  experience  of  the  wise  merchant- 
manufacturer,  who  had  not  watched  the  whims 
of  the  buying  public  in  vain.  Of  course,  the  two 
girl  pupils  competed,  and  needless  to  say  we 
watched  the  growth  of  the  recorded  votes  with 
breathless  interest.  A  rather  small  invited  audi- 
ence waited  for  the  counting  and  announcement 
of  the  votes.  Mr.  Prang's  suggestion  was  verified. 
The  first  prize  was  awarded  by  both  artist  and 
popular  vote  to  the  same  card — that  exhibited  by 
Dora  Wheeler.  This  was  astounding,  to  be  sure, 
and  it  was  well,  perhaps,  for  me  that  there  should 
be  cheers  and  hand-shakes  and  congratulations  to 
cover  the  inevitable  internal  overturn  which  at- 
251 


YESTERDAYS 

tends  the  surprises  of  life,  whether  they  are  sad 
or  happy  ones. 

Dora  was  in  the  Adirondacks  with  a  skating 
party,  at  a  week's  distance  from  a  post-office, 
when  the  award  was  made,  and  the  first  mail 
which  worked  its  way  through  snowdrifts  brought 
a  sheaf  of  telegrams  which  were  bundled  into  an 
envelope  and  sent  out  where  she  was  skating  on  the 
lake.  It  was  an  ominous-looking  bundle — five, 
six,  seven,  eight  telegrams,  and  the  man  who  was 
skating  with  her  asked  with  masculine  efficiency: 

"Shall  I  open  one  for  you?" 

"Yes,  read  it,"  and  he  read: 

"You  have  won  the  artist  and  popular  prizes. — FATHER." 

Whereupon  the  cloud  rolled  away. 
The  next  read: 

Miss  Dora  Wheeler  has  won  two  first  prizes.  Congratu- 
lations from  Louis  Prang. 

Then  there  was  one  from  our  good  and  dear 
friend,  Mrs.  Schuyler  Van  Rensselaer,  which  read : 

Ich  gratulire  tousand  mal, 

and  the  rest  from  friends  who  hastened  to  be  joy- 
bringers. 

They  danced  an  apology  for  a  minuet  upon  ice, 
these  two  solitary  skaters,  before  taking  up  their 
252 


"THE   ASSOCIATED   ARTISTS" 

journey  across  the  lake  and  through  the  piled-up 
snowy  track  to  the  house  where  the  rest  of  the 
party  were  apprehensively  waiting.  The  tension 
was  soon  relieved  by  the  waving  of  telegrams  and 
incoherent  shouts. 

The  studio  which  we  had  converted  from  the  big 
unbroken  garret  of  the  Twenty-third  Street  house 
was  a  great  success.  It  was  ideal  in  its  propor- 
tions, and  when  a  skylight  had  been  put  into  the 
slope  of  the  roof  it  was  all  that  could  be  desired; 
so  said  Mr.  Chase,  who  came  over  to  paint  a 
full-length  of  his  pupil  for  foreign  exhibition.  It 
hangs  in  the  large  "Nestledown"  parlor  now  after 
its  travels  around  the  world,  and  I  gather  from 
certain  criticisms  of  my  granddaughter,  who  is 
now  studying  at  The  Hague,  that  she  would  like 
to  repaint  the  face. 

Everybody  came  to  the  studio  in  those  days. 
Who  but  Oscar  Wilde  should  wander  in  one  after- 
noon just  before  nightfall,  introducing  himself 
with  great  self-possession  and  self -content,  look- 
ing around  the  studio  with  approval,  taking  an 
offered  cup  of  tea  with  alacrity,  and  bestowing  an 
hour  of  twilight  loiter  upon  us,  filled  with  specu- 
lative conversation.  Mr.  Wilde  did  not  take  in 
America,  probably  because  he  was  considered  a 
debatable  quantity  in  England,  and  even  more, 
perhaps,  because  of  his  velvet  suits  and  knicker- 
bockers and  scarlet  ties,  worn  on  all  occasions. 
I  had  a  suspicion  that  none  of  our  painter  and 
253 


YESTERDAYS 

author  friends  had  volunteered  to  introduce  him, 
and  he  had  therefore  chosen  with  characteristic 
self-confidence  to  do  it  for  himself. 

Again  one  afternoon  it  was  Lily  Langtry,  in 
her  first  estate  of  beauty  and  fresh  from  the  half- 
admiring,  half-scornful  attitude  of  the  British 
public  at  her  success  in  attracting  "Royalty." 
She  was  nearly  beautiful,  and  quite  interesting 
as  a  study  of  the  well-bred  Englishwoman.  Also 
she  was  very  susceptible  to  the  fascination  of  our 
manufactures  and  became  quite  a  constant  visitor 
to  the  salesrooms,  generally  sending  up  a  card 
and  asking  me  to  come  down  and  see  her.  It  re- 
quired some  little  study  to  keep  the  balance  ad- 
justed in  my  own  mind  between  my  sense  of  per- 
sonal dignity  and  Mrs.  Langtry's  opinion  of  her 
own  value  and  importance  in  the  world,  but  as  a 
whole  her  advent  was  interesting. 

When  Sir  Henry  Irving  and  vivacious  Ellen 
Terry  came  to  "The  Associated  Artists"  there 
was  no  question  of  adjustment.  Sir  Henry  had  a 
keen  interest  in  textiles  and  knew  them,  and  we 
talked  shop  while  the  pretty  lady  was  eager  to 
mount  the  stairs  to  the  studio,  where  she  flirted 
with  the  girl  visitors,  admired  their  gowns,  and 
made  herself  very  entertaining.  Sir  Henry  and  I 
talked  of  the  past  and  future  of  textile  art,  and 
of  his  friendship  with  Morris  and  Burne- Jones 
and  Watts,  and  of  how  much  England  owed  to 
their  interest  in  manufactures.  It  was  pleasant 
254 


"THE    ASSOCIATED    ARTISTS" 

to  stand  with  him  upon  the  ground  of  a  common 
enthusiasm  broken  here  and  there  by  people  whom 
we  both  knew  and  appreciated. 

One  day  some  one  brought  the  "Queen  of  the 
Sandwich  Islands,"  a  very  nice-looking,  very  well- 
dressed  dark  woman,  who  spoke  English  and 
looked  at  the  pictures  with  intelligence  and  curi- 
osity. I  was  a  good  deal  confused  by  the  cere- 
mony with  which  I  was  presented,  for  it  seemed 
to  imply  something  equally  ceremonious  on  my 
part.  However,  I  consoled  myself  with  the  near- 
est approach  to  a  courtesy  I  could  muster,  and 
it  seemed  to  satisfy  "her  Majesty." 

A  pleasant  incident  of  the  studio  days  was  the 
visit  early  one  afternoon  of  a  very  business-like- 
looking  man  whom  we  did  not  know.  He  asked 
to  see  some  of  Miss  Wheeler's  pictures,  and, 
finding  what  he  was  evidently  looking  for,  im- 
mediately bought  a  little  picture  which  had  just 
been  returned,  refused  for  the  coming  exhibition 
of  the  "American  Artists."  Dora  informed  him 
of  the  fact,  with  an  idea  that  there  was  a  certain 
dishonesty  in  withholding  it,  but  he  proceeded 
to  write  a  check,  quite  unmoved  by  the  informa- 
tion. After  he  had  gone  and  she  looked  at  the 
signature — Samuel  P.  Avery — she  waved  it  over 
her  head  in  delight. 

"He  saw  it  at  the  exhibition-rooms,"  she 
chanted,  "and  came  for  it! 

"Thank  you!  Thank  you,  Mr.  Avery!  I  shall 
255 


YESTERDAYS 

buy  lots  of  things  for  the  studio  with  this  in  Lon- 
don!" said  Dora,  and  she  did.  For  we  were  just 
about  sailing  for  a  summer,  or  at  least  a  holiday, 
in  England;  and  she  bought  old  carved  oak  Eng- 
lish chests  in  Chester  on  our  way  to  London,  and 
in  London  a  carved  teakwood  sideboard  from 
India,  and  a  chair  which  was  an  accumulation  of 
carved  leafage — all  from  Mr.  Avery's  check,  which 
seemed  like  the  "widow's  cruse  of  oil"  when  ap- 
plied to  London  prices. 

After  a  few  years  of  concerted  work  I  felt  that 
the  department  of  design,  embroidery,  and  tex- 
tiles had  become  sufficiently  important  to  be  car- 
ried on  as  a  separate  enterprise.  As  this  was  equal- 
ly true  of  the  department  of  Indian  woodwork,  the 
different  members  of  "The  Associated  Artists" 
agreed  to  resume  their  own  responsibility  and 
manage  their  own  progress.  Mr.  Colman,  who 
was  instinctively  a  painter,  with  a  love  of  color 
which  had  led  him  somewhat  reluctantly  into 
decoration,  retired  to  secure  the  leisure  and  the 
privacy  necessary  to  a  painter.  I  think  Mr.  Tif- 
fany was  rather  glad  to  get  rid  of  us  all,  for  his 
wonderful  experiments  in  glass  iridescence,  which 
were  to  culminate  later  in  the  manufacture  of 
"Favrile  glass,"  meant  far  more  to  him  at  the 
time  than  association  with  other  interests. 

Our  successes  in  printed  silks  and  woven  bro- 
cades, and  the  decisions  in  the  Warren-Fuller 
competitive  wall-paper  designs,  soon  resulted  in 
256 


"THE   ASSOCIATED    ARTISTS" 

demands  from  manufacturers  for  American  de- 
signs; so  it  was  not  long  before  many  of  our  de- 
signers were  fully  and  independently  employed, 
and  art  students  generally  were  studying  in  this 
direction.  The  growth  of  this  demand  and  the 
gradual  introduction  of  American  silks  as  such 
into  the  silk-market  was  not  without  its  influence 
on  importation;  so  what  had  been  done  as  a 
widening  of  the  field  of  woman's  labor  was  really 
of  national  importance  in  commerce.  American 
women  had  won  respect  for  American-made  fab- 
rics, and  so  small  a  thing  as  this  change  of  taste 
or  belief  was  of  commercial  value  as  well  as  a 
personal  benefit  to  the  growing  thousands  of 
designers. 

Another  of  the  general  interests  of  the  Associa- 
tion was  the  bringing  of  the  art  of  needlework  em- 
broidery into  its  ancient  place  of  importance  as  an 
adjunct  to  luxurious  and  costly  interiors.  Curious 
and  beautiful  weavings  have  for  centuries  oc- 
cupied almost  the  entire  ground  of  textile  adorn- 
ment, but  machinery,  however  skilful,  can  never 
accomplish  the  thought- value  of  which  art-inspired 
ringers  are  capable.  I  went  back  to  the  days  when 
tapestries  were  not  woven  but  wrought,  and  I 
imagined  a  tapestry  of  silk  heavily  and  flexibly 
woven,  which  could  receive  on  its  surface  a  super- 
imposed needle-weaving  which  carried  color  and 
design.  We  began  to  experiment  in  this  direction, 
and  in  time  produced  entire  silk  tapestries  which 
17  257 


YESTERDAYS 

had  a  right  to  their  name  of  "needle- woven 
tapestries."  The  pursuance  of  this  new  form  of 
art  brought  into  play  the  capacity  of  the  young 
painters  who  had  been  the  companion  students 
and  friends  of  my  daughter  and  rivals  with  her 
in  the  Christmas-card  competition. 

Rosina  Emmet  and  Dora  Wheeler  made  life- 
sized  cartoons  for  some  of  our  tapestries,  and  this 
brought  the  studio  and  the  workroom  very  close 
together.  The  subjects  of  them  were  often  taken 
from  American  literature.  One  which  we  called 
"the  Hiawatha  Tapestry"  was  done  from  an  en- 
larged design,  submitted  for  the  Saturday  com- 
position competition  at  Julien's  in  Paris.  The  vis- 
iting critic,  M.  Tony  Fleury,  had  marked  it  "A," 
and  sent  for  the  pupil  who  made  it.  When  she 
appeared,  instead  of  the  personal  criticism  she 
expected  she  was  asked  to  explain  the  meaning 
of  the  name  of  the  sketch.  She  explained  that 
"Minnehaha"  was  an  Indian  word  which  meant 
"Laughing  Water."  "Ah!"  said  he,  pointing  to 
the  figure  of  the  Indian  girl  standing  with  a  tame 
doe  beside  her,  and  looking  at  the  fall  of  the  shin- 
ing water,  "her  face  listens;  she  hears  voices  in 
the  water!"  Of  course,  this  tapestry  was  a  par- 
ticular favorite  with  me  because  of  the  criticism 
as  well  as  the  design.  I  was  happy  in  having  it 
find  a  purchaser  in  the  family,  and  I  am  still  grati- 
fied and  interested  when  I  see  it  hanging  in  the 
hall  of  Dr.  Lewis  Stimson.  It  is  perhaps  a  mixed 
258 


"THE   ASSOCIATED   ARTISTS" 

happiness  to  the  artist  that  the  better  his  work 
the  more  surely  he  loses  sight  of  it,  sometimes 
never  to  see  it  again. 

In  time  there  was  a  new  studio  built  back  of  the 
house  of  "The  Associated  Artists,"  a  rather  grand 
room  as  to  size,  with  two  fireplaces,  one  great 
skylight,  and  other  windows  for  eastern  or  west- 
ern effects.  Owing,  perhaps,  to  the  novelty  of  the 
introduction  of  the  woman  element  in  art,  it  be- 
came very  popular.  Up  to  that  time  there  had 
been  few  women  painters  of  any  note  in  America. 
Anne  Lea  Merritt  was  perhaps  the  most  con- 
spicuous of  the  stay-at-homes,  although  even  she 
finally  pursued  and  ended  her  career  in  London. 
Mary  Cassatt  had  made  a  reputation  in  Paris, 
Mrs.  Macmonnies  was  beginning  to  be  known  as  a 
painter,  and  there  was  also  the  American  wife  of 
Bouguereau,  who  after  years  of  dutiful  waiting  for 
the  never-to-be-granted  consent  of  the  parents, 
was  finally  married  to  him. 

I  should  mention  likewise  Fidelia  Bridges,  who 
became  known  as  a  conscientious  and  charming 
bird-painter;  but  the  number  of  women  of  talent 
who  painted  in  this  country  were  few  indeed. 
The  emergence  of  the  first  group  of  Chase  pupils, 
taught  in  the  same  methods  as  the  men  figure- 
painters,  was  a  matter  of  curiosity  and  interest 
to  their  masculine  rivals,  but  they  were  generous 
and  encouraging.  Mr.  Chase,  as  was  natural, 
gave  constant  criticism  and  approval,  and  the 
259 


YESTERDAYS 

young  painters  went  on  happily  together.  An- 
other of  the  group  was  Amanda  Brewster,  after- 
ward Mrs.  Sewell,  who  had  also  studied  with  them 
in  Paris,  but  whose  work,  beginning  in  landscape, 
led  her  finally  and  almost  exclusively  into  por- 
traiture, where  she  had  made  a  notable  success. 
Our  new  studio  was  socially  as  well  as  artistically 
popular;  the  frequent  presence  of  entertaining 
visitors  and  the  glamour  of  art  made  an  unusual 
combination.  This  was  varied  by  periods  when 
it  was  occupied  by  distinguished  painters  from 
abroad,  who  needed  a  studio  large  in  proportions 
and  easy  of  access  for  more  or  less  temporary 
work;  and  the  pictures  that  were  painted  in  it 
were  sometimes  of  an  importance  which  made  them 
like  incidents  in  the  history  of  art. 

For  one  short  season  John  Sargent  used  it, 
and  painted  the  portrait  of  Carmencita  which 
after  a  triumphal  march  around  the  world  rests, 
I  believe,  in  the  Luxembourg.  One  evening  during 
the  sittings  she  came  there  to  dance  for  a  few 
friends  whom  Mr.  Sargent  invited,  and  the  airs 
and  graces  of  the  dancing  child  of  fortune — seen 
at  close  hand — were  very  amusing.  I  did  not 
care  for  the  portrait,  probably  because  I  did  not 
care  for  the  sort  of  thing  it  represented,  but  one 
of  Mr.  Sargent's  greatest  pictures  came  into  what 
one  may  safely  call  immortality  in  the  studio  dur- 
ing the  few  weeks  or  months  of  the  great  painter's 
occupation.  It  was  the  portrait  of  the  Goelet 
260 


"THE   ASSOCIATED   ARTISTS" 

child,  which  had  the  quality  of  few  paintings  in 
the  world — the  very  quality  of  thought.  The 
little  soul  looked  out  at  you  through  eyes  which 
were  transparent.  I  have  always  felt  this  to  be 
one  of  Sargent's  great  pictures.  Another  which 
had  the  same  quality  was  that  of  Miss  Chanler, 
now  Mrs.  Chapman.  You  carry  away  from  it  a 
memory,  not  of  a  picture,  but  of  an  actual  being, 
one  which  lived  and  possessed  mysterious  identity. 

Herkimer  also  painted  some  of  his  "rapid-fire" 
portraits  in  the  studio,  and  at  the  last  came 
Anders  Zorn;  so  it  had  been  used  by  two  of  the 
great  painters — perhaps  the  two  greatest  of  the 
present  world. 

It  was  before  this  visit  of  the  Zorns,  in  fact, 
before  the  Columbian  Fair  experience,  that  Dora 
had  been  painting  a  series  of  portraits  of  men  and 
women  who  had  come  to  the  front  in  literature — • 
among  them  delightful  Frank  Stockton,  whose 
Rudder  Grange  and  The  Lady  or  the  Tiger?  were 
much  in  the  minds  and  to  the  taste  of  the  reading 
world;  Laurence  Hutton;  Charles  Dudley  War- 
ner; Brander  Matthews;  Richard  Watson  Gilder; 
Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich;  Mr.  Lowell;  John  Hay; 
Walt  Whitman;  Mark  Twain,  and  Mrs.  Stowe. 
Most  of  these  were  painted  at  the  studio,  but  for 
Mr.  Stockton's  portrait  a  short  week  was  spent  at 
his  pleasant  country  house  in  New  Jersey,  and  Mark 
Twain's  was  done  in  his  own  house  at  Hartford. 

Mr.  Lowell's  sittings  were  always  delightful,  and 
261 


YESTERDAYS 

not  infrequent,  for  he  had  a  great  friendship  for 
my  painter  daughter,  in  fact,  for  both  of  my  daugh- 
ters, since  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lowell  had  grown  to  know 
and  love  the  dear  elder  one  during  the  winter  we 
all  spent  together  in  the  little  hotel  in  the  Rue 
du  Bac.  Dora  was  then  the  "sick  girl"  to  whom 
Mr.  Lowell  and  John  Holmes  told  stories  in  the 
after-dinner  darkness  of  the  winter  days  of  Paris. 
He  was  fpnd  of  people  and  thought  well  of 
them,  so  you  always  heard  the  best  of  them; 
indeed,  one  always  came  away  from  him  with  a 
feeling  that  the  world  was  a  good  world  and  that 
most  of  the  people  in  it  were  quite  worthy  of  its 
best.  I  append  one  of  his  friendly  notes  to  my 
girl. 

J.  R.  LOWELL 

DEERFOOT  FARM, 

25th  Jan.  1887. 

DEAR  Miss  DORA,— The  report  in  the  Critic  is  as  near  the 
truth  as  such  usually  are.    I  was  in  New  York  last  November 
for  two  days  to  see  the  Greek  play  and  have  not  been  there 
since,  nor  shall  I  be  this  winter.    But  I  wish  I  might  be,  to 
see  you  again  and  eat  that  exquisite  dinner  you  offer  me.  ... 
But  I  must  lose  it,  I  would  come  on  express,  had  I  only 
time,  Miss  Dora  Wheeler.    I  shall  find  it  hard  to  make  my 
self-denial  acceptable  either  to  my  eyes  or  my  palate. 
But  take  this  apothegm  on  trust; 
There's  naught  so  good  for  us  as  must; 
I  mean  not  wine  that's  nauseous  new, 
But  tipple  of  a  bitterer  brew. 

With  kindest  regards  to  your  mother  and  most  earnest 
regrets  to  you,  Faithfully  yours, 

J.  R.  LOWELL. 
262 


"THE   ASSOCIATED   ARTISTS" 

Mr.  Aldrich's  sittings  were  full  of  mental  ex- 
citement. When  one  had  only  known  him  through 
his  delicately  fancied  polished  and  pensive  verse, 
it  was  with  a  shock  of  surprise  that  one  came  in 
contact  with  the  living  man  and  the  surprisingly 
agile  soul  which  uttered  itself  with  apparently 
unpremeditated  gaiety.  It  had  the  effect  of  an 
accumulation  of  brilliant  imaginings  which  had 
suddenly  found  an  outlet  and  burst  into  flashing 
expression.  The  portrait  was  painted  in  Boston 
and  he  came  to  the  sittings  a  vigorous  personality 
in  a  large  and  luxurious  fur-lined  coat,  which  some- 
how suggested  the  careful  protection  of  all  this 
genial  gaiety  against  the  frost  of  a  Boston  winter. 
I  should  have  said  that  it  was  not  a  quality  but  a 
rare  and  passing  mood,  had  it  not  accompanied 
the  man  so  closely.  I  was  driven  to  decide  that 
some  of  his  graver  verse  was  the  lapse  into  mel- 
ancholy of  a  naturally  gay  temperament,  and  that 
the  real  man  was  this  intensely  alive  creature 
bubbling  with  words  which  were  like  champagne 
in  effect  and  quality — and  oh,  the  cleverness  of 
them !  I  have  never  known  a  man  who  kept  one's 
intelligence  so  on  the  stretch  to  keep  pace  with 
him. 

I  had  met  him  years  before  at  evening  recep- 
tions in  Launt  Thompson's  studio  when  he  was 
younger  and  looked  rather  like  a  cherub  with  a 
curly  head — sometimes,  if  the  company  was  not 
quite  to  his  liking,  like  a  sulky  cherub.  I  had  re- 
263 


YESTERDAYS 

membered,  through  all  the  intervening  years,  an 
evening  when  he  sat  moodily  in  a  corner  with 
his  head  against  the  wall,  and  Thompson  circling 
around  to  me  and  asking,  "Do  you  want  to  hear 
Aldrich's  last  ?"  Yes,  I  did  want  to  hear  it.  There 
was  a  charming  young  stranger  in  the  room, 
very  beautifully  gowned,  an  effect  of  lace  and 
jewels  which  put  the  friendly  crowd  rather  at  a 
disadvantage.  She  was  from  the  West,  and  her 
name  was  Miss  Woodman  and  this  was  "Aldrich's 
last": 

Woodman,  spare  T.B.; 
Touch  not  a  single  curl. 

He  cannot  shelter  thee,  ' 
Thou  most  expensive  girl! 

This  absurd  parody  had  an  amusing  sequel, 
for  Miss  Woodman  became  Mrs.  Aldrich  and  in 
time  the  idol  of  the  "Boston  set,"  to  whom  she 
was  always  "The  Duchess."  It  was  at  one  of  her 
charming  evenings  that  we  met  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  whom  Dora  hoped  to  paint.  But  he 
resisted  the  coaxings  of  all  his  friends  and  "would 
not  be  painted — no,  he  would  not!" 

The  studio  became  a  sort  of  rendezvous  for 
our  Onteora  friends  who  made  their  visits  at  the 
dusky  ends  of  painting  days,  when  sitters  and 
painters  were  quite  ready  for  tea  and  conversa- 
tion. Some  of  the  men,  especially  Mr.  Warner,  Mr. 
Clemens,  and  Mr.  Hutton,  were  very  much  inter- 
ested in  the  English  quest  of  light  on  psychical 
264 


"THE   ASSOCIATED   ARTISTS" 

knowledge.  In  fact,  it  was  a  subject  of  very 
general  interest.  We  were  constantly  amused  with 
the  stories  of  my  son  Dunham  and  his  friend 
Robert  Sewell,  the  painter,  brought  home  from 
their  frequent  visits  to  mediums,  visits  which 
stood  on  the  one  hand  for  investigation  and  on  the 
other  for  amusement.  They  said  they  could  get 
more  fun  out  of  a  dollar  at  a  spiritualistic  seance 
than  an  evening  at  the  theater.  This  was  at  a 
time  when  I  was  greatly  troubled  at  an  absolute 
cessation  of  letters,  or  any  sort  of  news,  from  my 
eldest  boy,  who  had  developed  into  a  journalist, 
a  profession  which  fostered  all  his  wandering  in- 
clinations. We  had  last  heard  of  him  in  Australia. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  sea  and  all  strange  lands  called 
to  him,  and  all  strange  races  had  a  voice  for  him. 
In  fact,  he  seemed  to  belong  everywhere  on  earth 
but  in  the  spot  where  he  was  born.  My  anxiety 
infected  the  family,  and  Dunham  and  Robert 
Sewell  decided  to  consult  a  celebrated  English 
medium  whose  utterances  were  puzzling  the  scien- 
tific public. 

She  was  a  healthy,  good-looking  Englishwoman, 
who,  after  receiving  my  son's  dollar,  listened  care- 
fully to  his  answers  to  her  questions. 

"How  old  was  he?  How  long  had  he  been 
silent?  What  was  his  full  name?  How  did  he 
look?"  Then  she  went  into  a  trance,  and  presently 
began  to  talk  in  regular  medium  fashion : 

"There  is  a  man  here  named  James  Wheeler,  - 
265 


YESTERDAYS 

but  he  does  not  answer  your  description.  He  is 
about  forty  years  old,  not  twenty-four;  he  has 
large  black  eyes,  not  blue  ones;  he  is  dark,  not 
fair;  he  is  very  tall  and  thin,  and  looks  like  an 
invalid."  Then,  after  some  hesitation,  "He  does 
not  speak,  but  writes  on  a  little  slate."  Another 
pause.  "No,  it  is  not  the  man  you  want.  Your 
brother  is  not  in  the  spirit  land." 

Dunham  remembered  with  a  shock  of  surprise 
that  when  a  very  small  boy  he  had  an  Uncle  Jim, 
a  deaf-mute,  who  had  died  of  consumption  and 
who  always  carried  a  small  porcelain  writing- 
tablet  in  his  vest  pocket.  When  Dunham  told  us 
this  strange  tale  I  felt  an  inward  voice  saying, 
She  knows  and  Jim  is  alive ! 

The  next  day  Mr.  Hutton,  who  was  sitting  for 
his  portrait,  came  in.  Dora  told  him  this  strange 
experience. 

"I  know  where  your  brother  is,"  he  said. 

"Why,  how  and  where?" 

"Yes.  He  is  in  Seattle.  As  I  was  coming  here 
I  met  Mrs.  Longstreet,  an  old  friend  of  my  mother, 
and  on  my  telling  her  where  I  was  going  she 
asked  me  if  you  had  another  brother  than  Dun- 
ham. She  had  just  returned  from  Washington 
Territory,  and  one  day  on  the  way  from  Seattle 
to  Tacoma,  on  the  Flyer,  the  little  steamer  which 
goes  up  and  down  Puget  Sound,  she  had  met  a 
young  journalist,  who  asked  her  if  she  knew  Mrs. 
Candace  Wheeler  and  Dora  Wheeler,  the  painter. 
266 


"THE    ASSOCIATED   ARTISTS" 

She  said  she  did  know  them  and  that  they  were  par- 
ticular friends.  Then  the  young  man  said :  'There 
is  a  young  fellow  out  here  named  Wheeler  who  says 
he  is  their  son  and  brother.  He  has  not  seen 
them  for  two  years  and  they  do  not  know  where 
he  is.  He  is  planning  to  go  with  an  expedition 
to  the  Arctic;  he  says  he  knows  the  earth  pretty 
well  horizontally  and  means  to  know  it  perpen- 
dicularly. He  is  a  queer  chap,  and  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  "boomers"  in  the  Northwest.  The 
Journal  sends  him  everywhere.  I  advised  him 
to  write  his  family  before  he  leaves  on  this  ex- 
pedition, but  he  says  he  must  go  his  own  way  and 
it  is  not  the  way  of  his  people.  I  wish  you  would 
tell  them  about  it,  for  he  is  too  good  a  fellow  to 
cut  loose  and  drift  away  from  his  family.'  Mrs. 
Longstreet  promised,  on  the  impulse  of  the  mo- 
ment, but  she  does  not  know  how  to  broach  a 
subject  upon  which  your  family  are  silent.  It  is 
queer  I  should  come  directly  from  her  to  you,  to 
hear  you  speak  of  this  brother." 

"We  do  not  talk  of  him,"  said  Dora,  ''simply 
because  Mother  cannot  bear  it.  Most  men  'gang 
their  ain  gait,'  only  most  gaits  are  neighborly 
and  passable." 

So  it  was  through  dear  Larry  Hutton  that  I  had 
the  first  authentic  news  of  my  wandering  boy. 
The  very  day  after,  I  got  a  long,  dear,  newsy  letter 
from  him — not  a  bit  penitent. 


X 

ONTEORA 

TT  would  hardly  be  possible,  even  in  the  varied 
•*•  occupations  and  interests  of  the  mid-years  of 
my  life,  that  I  should  never  go  back  in  thought 
to  the  hill  country  of  my  childhood.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  glamour  of  the  hills  was  always  in  the 
background  of  my  mind,  although  I  was  so  con- 
stantly happy  in  the  flat  country  of  Long  Island. 
Every  summer  brought  the  homesickness  for  an 
outing  among  the  mountains,  and,  finding  this 
feeling  was  shared  by  my  brother  in  the  midst 
of  his  strenuous  city  life,  we  conceived  a  plan  to 
go  roaming  among  the  Catskills,  looking  for  some 
hill  from  the  top  of  which  there  would  be  a  great 
outlook,  yet  with  close  and  rugged  surroundings 
of  trees  and  rocks  and  mountains,  where  we  could 
build  a  camp  or  cabin  and  live  the  wild  life  for  a 
little  space.  From  our  home  in  the  Delaware 
hills  and  valleys  when  we  were  youngsters  we 
had  always  been  conscious  of  the  Catskill  Moun- 
tains which  lifted  their  heights  between  us  and 
the  river  highway  of  the  Hudson.  We  called  them 
268 


ONTEORA 

"The  Delectable  Mountains,"  because  of  Chris- 
tian's "Delectable  Mountains"  in  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress  and  because  they  were  blue  and  misty, 
and  our  hearts  turned  toward  them  with  yearning. 
So  it  came  about  that  one  spring  day  in  1883  we 
took  train  to  Phoenicia,  and  from  there  started 
on  our  exploring  tour  in  a  wagon  hired  at  the  sta- 
tion; our  plan  was  to  drive  over  the  rough  moun- 
tain roads,  making  a  loop  toward  the  river.  We 
borrowed  a  pillow  to  soften  the  jolts  for  my  city- 
bred  sister-in-law,  and  bade  good-by  to  railways 
and  other  accompaniments  of  civilization.  Higher 
and  higher  we  rose,  and  more  and  more  solitary 
the  road  became  as  we  passed  through  the  Stony 
Clove  where  a  rock  mountain  had  been  split  by 
centuries  of  the  silent  work  of  a  small  silvery 
stream  that  had  a  mind  to  join  the  great  Hudson. 
After  a  time  we  came  out  at  the  foot  of  Hunter 
Mountain  and  turned  to  the  east  on  the  compara- 
tively smooth  highroad  which  led  through  Kaat- 
erskill  Clove  to  the  Hudson  River.  All  along  the 
road  were  farms  running  upward  to  wooded 
mountains,  and  wherever  the  shoulder  of  one 
rounded  out  and  commanded  a  view  east  or  west 
along  the  mountain  range  we  left  the  city-bred 
sister-in-law  sitting  on  her  pillow  while  my  brother 
and  I  climbed  through  blossoming  orchards  and 
over  stony  pastures  to  find  the  best — the  very 
best,  the  widest  and  most  entrancing — view.  And 
we  were  long  in  its  rinding,  for  it  had  to  match 
269 


YESTERDAYS 

our  dreams.  Finally,  we  came  to  Roggin's  Corner, 
nearly  at  the  head  of  Kaaterskill  Clove,  and  there, 
during  the  delay  of  entertainment,  I  told  our 
errand  to  handsome  and  hospitable  Mrs.  Roggin. 

' '  Why  do  you  not  try  the  Eastkill  Valley  Road  ?" 
she  said. 

"I  do  not  know  it." 

' '  Turn  right  here  and  go  north, ' '  she  said.  ' '  The 
road  is  bad,  but  you  can  see  miles  and  miles  from 
the  back  of  'The  Crossing'  before  you  come  to 
Widow  Parker's  house;  that  is  where  Mr.  Durand, 
the  painter,  used  to  stay  every  summer." 

"The  Crossing"  meant  going  over  the  moun- 
tain-crest to  another  valley,  so  off  we  started — 
for  the  first  of  innumerable  aftertimes — up  the 
Eastkill  Valley  Road.  When  we  came  to  "The 
Crossing"  we  halted.  What  a  view  was  there! 
My  brother  left  us  in  the  wagon  while  he  ran  up 
and  over  the  pasture  on  our  left.  Presently  he 
waved  his  hand  and  called  to  me : 

"Come  up  here,  Can!"    And  I  went. 

There  were  beautiful  wooded  and  rock-piled 
mountains  everywhere,  with  the  afternoon  sun 
lying  in  their  hollows  between  "sun-struck" 
ridges,  softened  by  distance  and  hazy  with  the 
young  foliage  of  maple  and  birch  and  beech, 
mingled  with  the  dark  green  spires  of  hemlock 
upon  the  heights;  and  the  great  triangle  where 
Round  -Top  and  High  Peak  sloped  away  from 
each  other  was  filled  with  a  far-off  misty  view  of 
270 


ONTEORA 

miles  of  the  Hudson  Valley  and  beyond  the  Berk- 
shire Mountains,  opalescent  and  dreamlike. 

"Wait  here,"  said  my  brother,  and  left  me 
sitting  on  as  complacent  a  rock  as  we  could  find 
while  he  went  back  to  interview  the  driver  as  to 
the  ownership  of  the  acres  which  sloped  down  the 
hillside  below  the  tree-covered  mountain.  There 
I  sat  with  a  little  blue-and-gold  volume  of  Whit- 
tier  in  my  pocket,  and  presently  I  began  to  read 
"The  Tent  on  the  Beach,"  and  came  to  the  verse: 

They  rested  there,  escaped  awhile 

From  cares  that  wear  the  life  away, 
To  eat  the  lotus  of  the  Nile 

And  drink  the  poppies  of  Cathay; 
To  fling  their  loads  of  custom  down, 
Like  drift-weed,  on  the  sand-slopes  brown, 

And  in  the  sea-waves  drown  the  restless  pack 
Of  duties,  claims,  and  needs  that 

Barked  upon  their  track. 

Presently  the  long,  active  figure  of  my  brother, 
followed  by  a  shorter  one,  came  striding  up  the 
slope  from  the  road. 

"Well,"  said  he,  his  face  beaming  with  accom- 
plishment, "I  have  bought  the  farm." 

Presently  I  read  him  the  verse  from  Whittier. 
"You  see,"  said  I,  "he  felt  exactly  as  we  do." 

"Read  it  over,"  said  he.  "Yes,  and  we  will 
call  it  Lotus  Land."  And  so  it  is  called  to  this  day. 

Before  we  colonized  Onteora  it  was  inhabited 
by  less  sophisticated  beings  who  did  not  find  it 
271 


YESTERDAYS 

necessary  to  build  houses,  since  they  were  already 
provided  with  shelters  for  themselves  and  nesting- 
places  for  their  young.  The  bear  tribe  on  the 
mountain  only  anticipated  men  in  owning  homes, 
for  they  found  theirs  in  hollows  or  ledges  of  rocks. 

Before  man  was  thought  of  in  these  mountains, 
before  even  the  red  race  hunted  and  fished  over 
and  through  them,  I  can  fancy  I  see  the  big 
furry  people  climbing  over  the  ledges  at  nightfall, 
seeking  a  little  welcome  solitude  from  the  com- 
pany of  the  younger  generation;  or  intent  to  see 
a  red  sunset  or  sunrise  through  the  triangular 
gap  of  High  Peak  and  Round  Top.  Generations 
of  them  may  have  sat  in  bear-y  contemplation 
where  we  and  our  children  climb  in  present  days 
to  see  the  same  things;  and  all  the  small  animals 
that  dug  their  houses  under  the  rocks — the  wild- 
cats and  the  foxes,  the  woodchucks  and  the  little 
deer-mice  and  furry  moles,  the  birds  that  built 
in  the  trees  and  the  bees  that  lived  in  decaying 
ones,  the  wasps  that  hung  their  paper  lanterns 
on  the  low  branches  and  the  moths  that  attached 
themselves  singly  or  hung  in  air  awaiting  trans- 
formation— all  these  creatures  had  been  compara- 
tively undisturbed  by  the  red  race  of  men — but 
when  we  came  and  built  our  houses  and  pre- 
empted their  claims  they  took  themselves  to  other 
wildernesses  where  they  could  sit  together  and 
recount  their  wrongs  and  denounce  the  usurpers. 

We  planned  two  houses  standing  side  by  side 
272 


ONTEORA 

at  the  top  of  the  lower  slope  of  the  mountain  and 
overlooking  the  entrancing  view.  My  brother's 
was  to  be  of  logs,  and  this  also  was  my  ideal,  but 
the  men  of  the  farms  extending  along  the  bad 
mountain  roads  to  the  east  and  the  north  and  the 
south,  who  were  to  do  our  building  for  us,  advised 
me  in  time  that  a  real  log  house  was  an  expensive 
luxury,  whereas  sawed  lumber  was  cheap.  My 
brother  could  afford  his  ideal,  but  means  (what  a 
lovely,  far-reaching  word  applied  to  money!)  had 
to  be  deferred  to  in  my  case;  so,  although  our 
preferences  were  for  logs,  beautiful,  symmetrical 
rounds  of  sweet-smelling  substance,  we  accepted 
sawed  and  squared  lumber,  and  the  two  houses 
grew  apace  on  the  mountain-side. 

The  first  thought  after  the  inclosure  of  them, 
as  soon,  indeed,  as  occupation  was  possible,  was 
their  dedication;  and  this  took  the  shape  of  a 
housewarming  to  which  every  man  who  had 
blasted  a  rock,  or  dug  a  root,  or  drawn  or  hoisted 
a  log,  or  driven  a  nail  or  a  pair  of  oxen  in  our  ser- 
vice, was  invited  to  bring  his  family  and  confer 
upon  us  the  freedom  of  the  mountains.  The  time 
was  set  for  the  first  Saturday  in  July,  when  the 
moon  would  be  at  full.  The  only  guests  from  a 
distance,  or  from  the  world  below,  were  the  Misses 
Cheney  (Annie  and  Louise)  of  South  Manchester, 
the  second  generation  of  a  family  friendship. 
They  threw  themselves  into  the  plan  of  the  enter- 
tainment with  glee  —  in  fact,  they  shaped  it. 
18  273 


YESTERDAYS 

There  was  to  be  dancing  in  the  great  main  room 
of  the  log  house,  and  supper  in  the  one  of  sawed 
lumber;  and  the  girls  arranged  a  long  board  table 
entirely  across  the  middle  of  the  room,  leaving 
the  front  space  for  guests  and  the  back  with  its 
kitchen  entrance  for  the  supplies.  My  brother's 
idea  had  been  of  a  beautiful  out-of-doors  corn- 
roast  and  unlimited  brewings  of  root-beer,  but 
the  head  carpenter  changed  all  that. 

"Give  us  exactly  what  you  would  give  your 
friends  in  New  York,  Mr.  Thurber,"  he  advised, 
and  with  characteristic  humility  and  generosity 
my  brother  accepted  the  suggestion. 

Barrels  of  oysters  came  and  were  carted  over 
from  Phoenicia,  for  the  Kaaterskill  Railroad  was 
not  even  a  track  in  that  day,  only  a  survey  strung 
with  groups  of  Italian  diggers  cooking  their  food 
at  small  wood  fires  just  beyond  their  digging  and 
blasting.  So  the  oysters  came  by  wagon,  together 
with  boxes  and  barrels  of  cake,  and  ice-cream, 
and  harmless  things  to  drink. 

I  was  aghast  at  the  quantities  that  came  driving 
up  to  this  lonesome  place  under  the  sky,  and  pro- 
tested at  the  mountains  of  cake  which  were  being 
unpacked  outside  the  kitchen  door,  advising  that 
it  should  remain  in  the  barrels,  only  to  be  taken 
out  as  needed.  But  "The  Cheneys"  overruled. 

"We  know  how  to  feed  operatives,"  they  said, 
and,   remembering   their   armies   of   weavers   at 
South  Manchester,  I  refrained  from  advice. 
274 


ONTEORA 

The  moon  rose  that  night  twenty  times  as 
large  as  it  looked  down  in  the  valley,  and  wagons 
began  to  arrive — farm-wagons  and  lumber- wagons 
and  all  sorts  of  wagons,  a  long  procession  full 
of  men  and  boys  and  women  and  babies  and  girl 
children  of  all  ages.  Each  man  had  brought  "his 
quiver  full  of  them."  They  had  come  miles  and 
miles,  from  all  the  little  towns,  and  all  the  lone 
farm-houses,  to  assist  at  the  housewarming,  and 
still  they  came!  It  might  have  been  "General 
Training  Day"  or  "Camp-Meeting  Day";  and 
all  these  figures  were  mightily  picturesque  in  the 
broad  moonlight  on  the  mountain-side,  with  bon- 
fires cracking  their  teeth  over  the  debris  of  the 
new  houses  and  thrusting  out  tongues  of  fire  at 
the  moon. 

Then  came  the  dancing.  The  room  was  ar- 
ranged with  a  platform  on  one  side  at  equal  dis- 
tance from  the  ends,  made  from  barrels  and 
boards,  and  here  sat  the  three  peripatetic  fid- 
dlers who  were  the  high  priests  of  gaiety  for  all 
the  country.  Mrs.  Thurber  led  the  quadrille  with 
Mr.  Con  very,  and  with  what  energy  he  danced! 
Occasionally  it  happened  that  she  was  at  fault  in 
some  of  the  rapid  changes  of  the  dance;  then  the 
leading  fiddler  would  shout,  "You  there!"  point- 
ing his  bow  at  her.  "Come  back  here!"  And  back 
she  would  come,  laughingly,  to  the  point  indi- 
cated, and  begin  over  again.  But  her  beauty  and 
cheerfulness,  delightful  as  they  were,  had  no  effect 
275 


YESTERDAYS 

upon  the  vociferous  leader;  he  was  as  severe  with 
her  as  if  she  had  been  a  village  child  in  "dancing- 
school."  My  tall  brother  led  another  of  the 
dances  with  Mrs.  Convery,  she  full  of  the  dignity 
of  her  place,  and  Mr.  Thurber's  deep-set  eyes 
gleaming  with  enjoyment  and  appreciation.  All 
the  while  our  Dora  was  turning  and  pillowing  the 
bedful  of  babies  and  giving  them  their  bottles — 
for  every  one  of  them  was  thus  equipped  by 
motherly  preparation  for  the  dance. 

In  my  own  house  a  crowd  swarmed  around  the 
long  table,  expectant  and  hungry,  but  orderly 
and  generous,  even  the  children  giving  place  to 
others  in  their  turn.  But  before  the  evening  was 
over  the  table  was  bare  of  all  but  dishes,  and  the 
cake-barrels,  and  the  oyster-barrels,  and  the  bar- 
rels of  bottles,  and  even  the  bottles  of  pickles  were 
empty;  and  we  longed  for  a  miracle  like  that  of  the 
five  small  loaves  and  three  fishes  which  satisfied 
the  multitude,  or  even  for  a  pair  of  ravens  of  the 
good  old  Elijah  breed. 

Was  there  ever  a  better  or  more  beautiful  house- 
warming?  And  all  to  celebrate  the  beginning  of 
our  life  on  the  mountains,  and  thus  the  beginning 
of  Onteora.  But  it  came  to  an  end.  The  last 
morsel  of  PursselTs  cake  had  been  consumed  and 
the  last  drop  of  root-beer  had  vanished;  and  the 
horses  were  hitched,  and  wagon  after  wagon  drove 
away  full  of  pleased  men  and  tired  and  excited 
women  and  sleeping  children  •  and  the  moon  sailed 
276 


ONTEORA 

high  over  mountain  and  valley;  and  a  satisfied 
peace  fell  upon  the  entertainers.  Then  we  drew 
long  breaths  and  looked  at  the  empty  table,  and 
some  one  groaned: 

"Oh,  I  am  so  hungry!"  and  Annie  and  Louise 
Cheney  laughed. 

"I  knew  it,"  said  they,  whereupon  the  boys  ran 
up  the  stairs  and  came  down  full-handed!  Sand- 
wiches and  beer  and  cake  and  melted  ice-cream 
were  laid  upon  the  table. 

"We  locked  them  up  in  Dun's  room,"  said  the 
girls. 

"And  for  fear  of  Archie  Blum's  master-key,  I 
barricaded  the  door  and  climbed  out  of  the  win- 
dow," said  Dunham. 

"You  see,  we  knew  the  ways,"  added  Louise 
Cheney. 

Then  some  one  suggested  coffee,  and  there  was 
coffee,  and  we  enjoyed  it,  and  when  it  was  all  over 
Frank,  the  beloved,  kissed  us  all  around,  boys  and 
girls  alike,  and  we  went  to  our  little  beds  in  our 
little  rooms,  and  tried  to  wash  the  moonlight  out 
of  our  eyes  and  sleep.  And  the  morning  was  a 
new  day,  the  sunlit  beginning  of  Onteora 

The  original  ground  plan  of  the  sawed-lumber 
house  was  one  large  room  with  a  broad  corner 
fireplace,  and  an  outside  kitchen  "leanto"  fur- 
nished with  a  capable  stove,  the  pipe  of  which 
was  inserted  in  the  back  of  the  sitting-room  chim- 
ney; and  in  spite  of  forebodings  and  warnings 
277 


YESTERDAYS 

from  the  building  farmers  the  smoke  of  the  two 
fires  rose  in  amicable  columns  and  floated  out 
sociably  together  in  wreaths  and  spirals,  which 
played  awhile  in  the  air  before  their  final  essence 
was  dissolved  in  a  soft  blue  haze  around  the 
mountain.  At  first  the  fire-logs  were  supported 
upon  limited  piles  of  brick,  and  a  long  fire-seasoned 
hickory  stick  lifted  and  poked  and  kept  them  in 
place;  but  when  the  Gilders  came  to  see  us,  Mr. 
Gilder,  who  loved  to  poke  a  fire,  conceived  the 
thought  of  a  sophisticated  iron  shovel  and  pair 
of  tongs,  and  when  the  Century  called  him  to 
Babel,  he  realized  his  thought  and  brought  these 
useful  articles  back  with  him.  They  were  tall  and 
stately  creatures,  so  we  christened  them  "Helena" 
and  "Richard"  and  gave  them  a  permanent  place 
on  either  side  of  the  fire,  where  they  leaned  for 
many  a  day  and  year,  always  complacent  and 
capable. 

One  corner  of  the  room  was  devoted  to  the 
two  boys,  Dunham  Wheeler  and  his  almost  equally 
aged  nephew,  Henry  Stimson.  We  called  it  the 
"armory."  Two  windows  met  in  an  angle  in  this 
corner  and  a  broad,  triangular  seat  was  filled 
with  effective  material  which  we  women  feared 
and  hated,  yet  tolerated  in  this  sanctuary  because 
they  were  the  beloved  playthings  of  our  beloved 
boys.  The  opposite  corner  was  the  library,  also 
with  its  angle-windows  looking  south  and  east 
into  a  heaven  of  beauty. 
278 


ONTEORA 

There  were  little  shelves  in  the  corner  where 
the  sashes  met,  and  little  shelves  on  either  side 
which  held  books — few  but  precious — and  there 
was  a  wall-desk  and  a  cushioned  seat  below  the 
windows,  and  a  braided  rug  upon  the  floor,  and 
two  chairs  and  a  bit  of  a  table  for  a  glass  of  wild 
flowers.  That  was  our  library;  adequate,  small 
as  it  was,  to  the  intellectual  needs  of  the  family; 
as  the  opposite  corner  was  also  sufficient  for  the 
masculine  development  of  a  future  Secretary  of 
War  and  an  architect  and  designer. 

The  northeast  corner  held  the  stairway,  with 
the  platform  which  led  to  the  little  cubes  of  space 
which  were  literally  bedrooms.  The  remaining 
corner  of  the  room  was  the  artery  of  fire,  the  per- 
petual fountain  of  comfort  and  spectacle  of  living 
beauty. 

The  central  space  of  the  large  room  was  the 
dining-room,  the  meals  being  served  from  the 
generous  dresser  against  the  north  wall  of  the 
room;  but  betweenwhiles  it  answered  the  various 
social  and  domestic  purposes  of  living  and  recep- 
tion room. 

The  east  wall  was  the  picture-gallery,  and  the 
face  of  it  was  covered  with  portraits,  painted 
directly  in  the  plaster,  of  the  delightful  friends 
who  came  first  to  our  mountain  home — "Libby" 
Ouster's  head  in  a  sheltering  and  becoming  sun- 
bonnet;  the  sweet  face  of  wide-  and  open-eyed 
Mrs.  Gilder;  the  "father  of  us  all,"  as  Mr.  Wheeler 
279 


YESTERDAYS 

was  called  by  the  young  folks,  with  his  inevitable 
pipe;  Mark  Twain  in  his  midday  prime;  Mrs. 
Clemens,  and  dear  country-loving  John  Bur- 
roughs, whose  sympathy  embraced  man  and  bird 
and  beast,  and  whose  coming  always  brought  a 
great  square  basket  filled  with  the  grapes  of  his 
own  vineyard,  so  firm  and  large  and  beautiful 
that  we  said  they  must  know  who  dug  and  delved 
for  them,  and  so  appreciated  the  honor. 

And  there  were  other  pictures,  large  and  small, 
but  of  them  all  only  Mark  Twain  remains, 
glazed  and  framed  as  becomes  his  later  dignity. 
In  the  growth  of  the  house  a  chimneypiece  and 
doors  and  domestic  improvements  of  various 
sorts  have  crowded  the  primitive  picture-gallery 
out  of  existence. 

So  all  the  various  necessities  of  human  habita- 
tion were  condensed  in  the  thirty  square  feet  of 
the  sawed-lumber  house. 

Four  wonderful  summers  we  spent  on  our 
mountain,  in  close  companionship  with  the  orig- 
inal tribes.  A  fat  mother  woodchuck  made  a 
nest  under  our  front  piazza,  and  the  quarter- 
and  half-grown  family  played  like  kittens  over 
it.  A  nestful  of  flying-squirrels  lived  in  the  nearest 
beech-tree;  porcupines  gnawed  at  our  front  door, 
foxes  barked  to  one  another  at  night,  bears  came 
down  from  the  mountain  in  the  moonlight  and 
sniffed  at  the  clothes-lines,  and  friends  came, 
dear  friends,  who  left  their  full-grown  trunks  on 
280 


ONTEORA 

the  piazza  and  slept  in  our  eight-by-eight  bed- 
rooms, wore  their  flannel  suits  all  day,  and  were 
immeasurably  happy.  We  made  a  trail  over  to 
the  wonderful  spring  on  Mrs.  Parker's  ground 
near  the  highroad,  known  to  the  country  people 
far  and  wide  as  "The  Crystal  Spring."  Back  of  it 
was  a  narrow  strip  of  rough,  rocky  pasture,  and 
back  of  that,  still  rising,  but  cleared  of  trees,  the 
ground  seemed  to  sink  out  of  sight  and  rocks  of 
all  shapes  and  sizes  took  its  place.  There  was 
one  great  rock  mass  split  into  two  pyramidal  ones, 
where  we  could  build  a  fire  and,  when  it  had  died 
low,  wedge  ears  of  corn  between  the  two  sides, 
and  eat  our  out-of-doors  dinner  on  a  table-shaped 
rock  close  at  hand.  All  the  city  friends  who  visited 
us,  and  the  musical  friends  who  came  to  see  Mrs. 
Thurber,  helped  to  carry  the  supplies  through  the 
blackberry  trails  and  over  the  rail  fence  to  the 
dining-place.  On  the  day  of  the  first  dinner  the 
Widow  Parker  made  her  way  between  the  rocks, 
from  her  little  farm-house  beyond,  to  see  what 
was  the  meaning  of  the  smoke  rising  among  them. 
It  might  be  anything  wonderful — the  breaking 
out  of  volcanic  fire,  or  a  burning  spring,  or  it 
might  be  what  it  was,  "a  kind  of  outdoor  spree 
of  them  Thurbers  and  Wheelers";  but  she  who 
came  to  wonder  stayed  to  share  our  dinner  and 
made  us  free  of  the  rocks  and  the  wonderful  view. 
One  afternoon  two  undoubted  tourists,  a  man 
and  a  woman,  turned  from  the  highroad  and  made 
28; 


YESTERDAYS 

their  way  to  us,  and  who  should  it  be  but  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Thomas  A.  Janvier. 

"Why,  this  is  our  view!"  said  they.  "Some  day 
we  are  going  to  build  a  rock  house  here  and  live 
in  the  view."  We  tried  to  capture  them  and  shut 
them  up  for  a  week  in  the  "sawed-lumber  house," 
but  they  were  on  an  aerial  trip  over  the  moun- 
tains, mountain-lovers  as  they  were,  and  could 
only  stop  to  share  our  roasted  corn  and  give  us 
unwritten  deeds  of  their  pre-empted  outlook. 

We  called  our  two  houses  "Lotus  Land"  and 
"Pennyroyal,"  the  first  because  of  Whittier's 
verse,  and  the  second  because  of  the  fragrant 
purple  weed  that  grew  so  thickly  when  we  planted 
the  house;  and  because,  as  Dora  said,  it  was  so 
royal  and  cost  but  a  penny.  Afterward  my  brother 
measured  off  a  square  of  the  ground  upon  which 
the  house  stood,  made  a  deed  of  it,  and  gave  it  to 
her,  saying,  "Now  you  may  pay  the  taxes." 
And  as  the  lumber  bills  had  come  with  the  log 
bills  to  "Thurber,"  and  carpenters'  bills  had  also 
come  to  "Thurber,"  it  was  a  gift  which  held  the 
beauty  of  all  succeeding  summers. 

My  brother,  who  was  born  on  a  farm,  as  are 
most  successful  American  merchants,  delighted  in 
the  cultivation  of  the  comparatively  smooth- 
flowing  acres  which  Mr.  Convery  had  wrested 
from  the  forest,  and  in  planting  apple-trees.  He 
planted  them  all  down  the  slope  of  the  Convery 
meadow  and  beside  "Lotus  Land,"  and  four  of 
282 


ONTEORA 

them  crowded  the  little  side  garden  which  was  so 
bare,  and  the  back  of  the  studio  which  Dora  built 
when  our  camping-days  were  over  and  the  second 
chapter  of  Onteora  days  had  really  begun. 

But  our  real  lives  were  lived  out  of  doors,  from 
the  time  when  spring  beauties  and  anemones 
covered  the  sweet,  teeming  earth  and  the  tender 
curls  of  maidenhair  fern  unfolded  and  stood 
trembling  upon  their  long  brown  stems,  until 
early  snow  flurries  drove  their  gathered  flakes 
athwart  the  flaming  maple  leaves.  Then  we 
wetted  the  kitchen  and  fireplace  ashes  into  safety, 
and  locked  the  doors  behind  us,  and  betook  our- 
selves once  more  to  the  lower  world. 

It  came  about  as  the  summers  added  to  them- 
selves, and  through  each  one  we  grew  more  and 
more  in  love  with  our  wild  surrounding,  that  the 
farm  north  of  us  came  into  the  market.  It  in- 
cluded the  wild  mountain  above  Mr.  Thurber's 
property,  running  over  into  the  Eastkill  Valley  on 
the  north  and  spreading  into  rough  meadows  and 
pastures  and  woodland  on  the  east.  It  comprised 
some  seven  hundred  acres  which  Mr.  Parker  had 
taken  up  when  he  was  young  and  everything 
west  of  the  Catskills  was  new.  When  he  was  old 
and  tired,  and  much  of  his  strength  and  life  had 
gone  in  a  vain  effort  to  make  the  land  forget  its 
wilderness  habits  and  adopt  those  of  older  coun- 
tries, he  had  left  it  all — the  great  farm  and  the 
work  and  the  care — to  the  dear  old  lady  whom 
283 


YESTERDAYS 

we  knew  as  "the  Widow  Parker,"  and  whose  little 
red  house  was  along  the  road  just  north  of  the 
Crystal  Spring.  She,  too,  was  tired,  poor  soul! 
and  the  acres  were  wilful  and  heavy,  and  she 
was  more  than  ready  to  resign  them.  We  loved 
every  inch  of  the  mountain  with  its  wild  heights 
and  far  views,  the  wide  crevices  where  bears 
lived  and  reared  their  young  and  where  hedge- 
hogs and  woodchucks  burrowed,  and  it  came  into 
our  minds  to  possess  it  and  then  invite  the  friends 
who  also  loved  it  and  in  whose  companionship  we 
found  such  content  to  come  and  make  homes  in 
our  paradise.  When  we  proposed  this  scheme  to 
our  men,  almost  to  our  surprise  they  thought  well 
of  it.  The  dreams  of  women  do  not  always  ap- 
peal to  men,  but  it  seemed  that  this  one  had 
substance. 

"We  will  talk  with  Coykendal  about  it,"  said 
my  husband. 

Mr.  Coykendal  had  just  completed  the  branch 
of  the  Ulster  &  Delaware  road  which  came  to 
Hunter  and  Tannersville  and  then  passed  on  to 
the  two  great  hotels  on  the  very  top  of  the  range 
of  the  Catskills,  the  old  "Catskill  House"  and 
the  "KaaterskiH";  and  it  would  be  natural  that 
he  should  be  impressed  with  a  dream  which  prom- 
ised increased  travel  for  the  new  road. 

"I  think  Mr.  Martin  might  be  interested," 
said  Mrs.  Thurber.  Mr.  Martin  was  a  far-away 
neighbor  on  the  Kaaterskill  road,  but  far-away 
284 


ONTEORA 

neighbors  counted  in  that  day  of  few  country 
houses. 

"You  had  better  drive  over  and  see  him,  Net- 
tie," said  my  brother. 

And  so  it  came  about  that  the  four  men  made 
a  company  of  themselves  which  was  called  "The 
Catskill  Mountain  Camp  and  Cottage  Co.," 
and  which  grew  after  the  shape  of  our  minds  until 
it  outgrew  it  and  became  what  it  is.  And,  after 
all,  why  should  it  not  change  from  the  original 
that  was  in  our  minds?  Every  human  being  has 
a  right  to  shape  the  material  that  comes  into  his 
hands  so  long  as  he  can  hold  it,  and  no  longer. 

But  the  impress  of  our  minds  remained  in  cer- 
tain things.  An  idea  is  not  a  very  apparent  force, 
but  sometimes  it  is  a  durable  one,  and  the  kindli- 
ness and  friendship,  the  human  sympathy  and 
love,  which  were  welded  into  the  first  shape  re- 
main and  are  a  direct  inheritance  from  the  loving 
man  who  lived  his  love  into  it  from  the  beginning. 

The  first  work  of  "The  Catskill  Mountain  Camp 
and  Cottage  Co."  was  to  build  a  modest  hostelry 
where  friends  could  rest  awhile  until  they  should 
decide  to  make  a  more  permanent  lodgment  on 
the  mountain.  By  that  time  the  boy,  Dunham 
Wheeler,  had  acquired  architectural  aspirations 
and  had  undertaken  serious  study  in  that  direc- 
tion, so  he  was  given  the  building  of  the  Inn  and 
the  three  cottages  belonging  to  it.  It  was  to  stand 
on  the  very  ledge  of  which  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Janvier 
285 


YESTERDAYS 

had  given  us  the  "quit-claim  deeds"  that  summer 
day  when  they  had  waited  to  eat  outdoor  roasted 
ears  of  corn  with  us;  and  we  looked  anew  at  the 
lovely  outlook  and  rejoiced  with  a  prevision  of 
numberless  other  hearts  which  should  in  days  to 
come  be  gladdened  and  uplifted  by  its  beauty. 

The  building  days  of  the  Inn,  from  the  stu- 
pendous blasting  of  the  rocky  platform  where  we 
had  been  wont  to  eat  our  picnic  dinners  to  the 
finishing  touches — which  were  a  carefully  thought 
out  compromise  between  primitive  and  civilized 
needs — were  full  of  interest.  And  when  it  was 
completed  what  a  pretty,  rustic  thing  it  was,  with 
its  long,  gently  curving  slope  of  roof  and  its  swing- 
sign  of  the  bear  and  fox  walking  together  to  the 
Crystal  Spring! 

The  building  was  the  first  architectural  work 
of  my  son,  Dunham,  and  the  sign  was  a  painted 
fancy  of  Dora's.  When  it  was  finished  we  de- 
voted a  week  to  hospitality,  asking  people  whom 
we  loved  and  who  fitted — a  goodly  company. 
Mountain  explorations  were  the  order  of  the 
day  and  at  night  there  were  dances  in  the 
great  Inn  parlor,  where  it  was  interesting  to  see 
the  young  countrymen,  every  one  of  whom  had 
had  a  share  in  the  building  of  the  Inn,  teaching 
novel  steps  and  country  dances  to  the  daughters 
of  Bishop  Potter  and  other  personages  of  the  great 
world.  Mr.  Thurber  had  undertaken  the  organi- 
zation of  the  service,  and  the  odor  of  perfect 
286 


ONTEORA 

French  cookery  did  not  seem  to  fight  with  that 
of  the  young  balsam  fir-trees  which  sprang  from 
every  crevice  of  the  rocks. 

So  began  the  days  of  the  Inn,  the  second  phase 
in  the  life  of  Onteora.  It  grew  by  an  accident  of 
friendship,  the  human  instinct  for  congenial  com- 
panionship, the  desire  to  draw  people  whom  we 
loved  into  an  almost  unknown  realm  of  beauty. 
It  was  because  of  this  that  the  little  Inn  was 
built,  and  in  compliment  to  the  original  inhabi- 
tants of  the  place  it  was  called  "The  Bear  and 
Fox,"  while  the  first  three  cottages  were  christened 
after  creatures  and  flowers  which  had  associated 
names — "Wake-robin,"  "Crow-foot,"  and  ''Lark- 
spur." 

The  chosen  people  who  came  to  stay  at  the 
Inn  and  who  built  small  cottages  on  beauty  spots 
on  the  eastern  and  southern  faces  of  Onteora 
Mountain  used  to  gather  at  night  in  the  main 
room  of  the  Inn.  Mark  Twain  and  Jamie  Dodge 
— who  surely  had  the  gift — told  stories,  and 
Laurence  Hutton  and  Brander  Matthews  con- 
tributed their  share  of  the  entertainment;  while 
the  Century  Gilders  and  some  of  our  beloved 
painters  smiled  or  laughed  and  listened.  And 
the  wives  and  daughters  of  all  these  gathered 
around  that  particular  supporting  post  which  was 
nearest  the  great  fireplace  and  which  they  called 
"The  Evening  Post." 

Among  the  very  first  who  were  so  caught  by 
287 


YESTERDAYS 

the  glamour  of  the  mountains  as  to  make  homes 
there  were  three  women  of  note,  Mary  Mapes 
Dodge,  whose  book  of  The  Silver  Skates  still  sells 
— marvel  of  publication  after  forty  years  of  printed 
existence — and  whose  editorship  of  St.  Nicholas 
has  made  her  the  friend  of  all  the  enlightened 
young  people  of  the  country;  Susan  Coolidge,  the 
woman  of  gift  and  charm;  and  Mrs.  J.  N.  A. 
Griswold,  born  Emmet,  with  even  more  than  her 
share  of  the  Emmet  brilliancy  sparkling  in  all 
she  did.  Mrs.  Dodge's  quips  and  sayings  went 
from  mouth  to  mouth  and  carried  smiles  and 
laughter  with  them.  Susan  Coolidge  beautified 
her  own  place  and  made  herself  a  constant  happi- 
ness. These  three  selected  and  made  homes  at 
the  very  first,  and  afterward  Jeannette  Gilder 
brought  to  the  colony  her  rare  and  true  personality. 
Mrs.  Custer  built  "The  Flags";  a  ledge  was  found 
for  the  cottage  of  Mrs.  Schuyler  Van  Rensselaer; 
Kate  Field  glanced  in  upon  us  for  one  summer 
with  Mrs.  Runkle  and  Lily  French;  and  later 
came  that  goodly  flier  among  women,  Ruth  Mc- 
Enery  Stuart,  with  her  wonderful  stories  told 
and  written,  and  her  sweet-voiced  and  sweet- 
souled  sister,  and  the  boy  who  was  a  dream  of 
youth.  It  was  these  people  who  stirred  the  air 
of  Onteora  with  their  wings. 

During  those  years,  when  the  clamor  of  our 
amusing  times  and  deeds  made  its  way  beyond 
the  mountains  to  the  outside  world,  other  kindred 
288 


ONTEORA 

souls  came  to  spend  transient  days  with  us  and 
were  moved  to  become  permanent  dwellers  on 
the  heights.  Carroll  Beckwith  added  living-  and 
painting-rooms  to  the  commanding  "Ledge"  on 
the  south  side  of  the  mountains,  and  the  spread 
of  sloping  beauty  wiled  Ripley  Hitchcock  into 
materializing  a  cottage  on  an  outspur  of  the 
mountain  below.  And  so  grew  Onteora. 

I  was  very  naturally  interested  in  the  earlier 
history  of  Onteora,  of  those  who  had  preceded 
us  in  its  occupation  when  it  was  known  far  and 
wide  as  "Parker  Mountain."  Its  peculiar  posi- 
tion, so  detached  from  the  western  chain  of  moun- 
tains as  to  command  four  separate  views,  dis- 
tinguished it  from  all  others,  and  I  was  interested 
in  the  Parker  who  had  made  it  his  own  and  lived 
and  died  in  its  shadow  and  sunshine. 

I  found  that  he  was  born  and  bred  on  a  Hud- 
son River  farm,  which  his  people  had  held  for  sev- 
eral generations  at  Saugerties,  that  he  had  married 
and  moved  back  from  the  river  to  where  he  could 
find  a  foothold  on  unoccupied  land  among  the 
mountain  valleys  of  the  Cat  skills.  I  often  found 
a  trace  of  the  prosperous  river  family  in  the  little 
red  farm-house  on  the  starved  acres  of  the  large 
Parker  farm.  Once  it  was  a  well-preserved  French 
testament,  and  when  Mrs.  Parker  saw  me  inter- 
ested, she  explained  that  it  had  been  her  husband's 
and  that  he  used  to  read  it,  but  kept  it  out  of  sight 
of  the  neighbors. 
19  289 


YESTERDAYS 

"But  why?"  I  asked.  "There  is  surely  no  harm 
in  reading  a  French  testament?" 

"No,"  said  she,  hesitatingly,  "but,  you  see, 
none  of  them  could  read  it  and  they  might  think 
he  was  proud." 

It  was  very  touching  to  me  to  think  of  the 
descendant  of  Huguenots  living  down  to  his 
surroundings  in  that  way  for  fear  of  offense,  and 
I  wondered  at  the  self-sacrifice  of  it. 

At  another  time  I  found  a  small  framed  panel 
of  -embroidery  on  Mrs.  Parker's  bedroom  wall 
and  recognized  it  as  one  of  the  needlework  pictures 
which  the  daughters  of  prominent  Colonial  fami- 
lies educated  in  the  famous  Moravian  school  at 
Bethlehem  were  taught  to  embroider.  It  belonged 
to  the  class  known  as  "mourning  pictures,"  a 
figure  of  a  woman  bending  over  a  lettered  monu- 
ment and  under  branches  of  weeping  willow,  ex- 
quisitely embroidered  with  colored  flosses  upon 
a  square  of  rich  white  satin.  This,  Mrs.  Parker 
explained,  was  done  by  an  aunt  of  Mr.  Parker's 
at  boarding-school.  And  again  I  wondered  if  its 
inconspicuous  place  on  the  wall  of  the  tiny  bed- 
room was  in  deference  to  the  feelings  of  neighbors, 
and  contrasted  this  delicacy  with  my  own  out- 
spoken pride  in  the  achievements  of  my  needle- 
loving  grandmother.  But,  after  all,  I  said  to  my- 
self, nobody's  feelings  can  be  hurt  and  no  one's 
envy  can  be  excited  by  the  accomplishment  of 
my  grandmother. 

290 


ONTEORA 

"But  if  they  could  be,"  murmured  the  shadowy 
New  England  conscience,  which  still  now  and 
then  speaks  to  my  inner  self,  "if  they  could  be, 
would  you  sequester  it?" 

In  the  mean  time  a  church  was  being  built  on 
the  little  triangular  patch  between  two  public 
roads  which  crossed  the  Onteora  property,  a  beau- 
tiful stone  chapel  which  concerned  our  Eastkill 
neighbors  as  well  as  ourselves.  This  was  to  be 
free  to  all  denominations,  for  there  was  then  no 
church  in  the  valley.  It  had  a  modest  tower  and 
a  wide-open  fireplace,  and  the  low  windows  were 
diamond-paned,  with  a  pale  rose-colored  shield 
in  the  center  of  each.  For  these  I  had  imagined 
an  especial  purpose.  Each  window  was  to  be 
dedicated  to  happiness  instead  of  sorrow,  to  gain 
instead  of  loss;  for  by  that  time  we  had  young 
people  and  lovemaking  and  mating,  and  it  seemed 
to  me  that  if  each  window  were  given  in  its  turn 
to  a  record  of  the  chief est  joy  which  comes  to  us 
in  life  it  would  add  a  personal  value  to  the  senti- 
ment of  worship.  It  was  of  course  an  unorthodox 
thought  and  perhaps  shocked  the  generally  in- 
grained sense  of  solemnity  and  devotion  as  con- 
nected with  churches.  So  there  were  but  two  such 
records,  that  of  dear  Edith  Griswold  and  the  man 
she  had  chosen,  and  of  Dora  Wheeler  and  Boudinot 
Keith;  the  rest  of  the  windows  stand  empty  to 
this  day,  although  the  little  church  has  been  the 
scene  of  many  marriages,  and  memorials  of  sor- 
291 


YESTERDAYS 

row  have  come  in  spite  of  the  impulse  of  earthly 
love. 

The  church  was  never  formally  dedicated,  be- 
cause of  the  broad  simplicity  of  its  original  purpose. 
It  has  fallen  into  the  habit  of  Episcopacy,  although 
not  confined  to  it.  Presbyterians  and  Congrega- 
tionalists  and  Methodists  had  and  have  their  lib- 
erty within  its  walls,  since  it  was  built  for  all. 

Among  the  Onteora  days  there  was  one  when 
we  gathered  at  Artists'  Rock  to  honor  the  names 
of  our  predecessors  in  love  of  the  Catskills.  These 
names  were  carved  in  a  hollow  of  the  rock  hung 
high  above  the  little  red  house  of  the  Widow 
Parker,  the  house  which  had  lodged  Durand  and 
Cole  for  many  summers  of  out-of-door  painting. 
Cole,  Durand,  Church,  Gifford,  Whitridge,  and 
McEntee  were  the  names  carved  in  the  cave 
formed  by  the  rock,  for  all  of  these  had  been 
Catskill  Mountain  painters  and  lovers.  Even  at 
that  date  only  two  of  these  painters  survived. 
Church,  whose  beautiful  home  was  away  in  the 
hills  on  the  other  side  of  the  Hudson,  was  much 
too  infirm  to  leave  it,  and  Whitridge  was  then  an 
old  man,  but  happily  able  to  come  from  the  city 
to  us.  And  I  remembered  them  both  as  in  the 
very  prime  of  manhood,  before,  in  fact,  either  of 
them  had  married !  So  many  were  gone !  Gifford 
and  McEntee,  whose  very  names  had  been  house- 
hold words  with  us,  and  so  many  others  whose 
friendship  had  been  so  dear! 
292 


ONTEORA 

I  have  these  many  summers  summoned  tender 
and  loving  thoughts  of  them  as  I  come  into  the 
mountain-land  which  they  so  loved  and  glorified. 
It  was  a  thing  to  be  thankful  for  that  even  one 
of  that  group  of  painters  who  had  been  a  part  of 
early  American  art  could  be  of  us  and  with  us  on 
the  day  when  we  named  "Artists'  Rock"  in 
thankful  memory  of  them  and  of  their  work. 

There  was  much  painting  of  pictures  at  "  Penny- 
royal" in  those  early  days,  and  pictures  could  not 
always  be  painted  out  of  doors.  They  need  the 
brooding  of  shadow  for  their  growth,  so  a  studio 
became  a  necessity,  and,  like  all  strong  necessities, 
it  answered  to  the  call.  I  have  always  noticed  that 
an  incessant  wish  formulated  in  the  mind  is  sure 
to  take  on  material  form,  and  Dora  wanted  a 
studio.  The  need  grew  into  shape  close  beside 
"Pennyroyal"  in  the  northeast  quarter  of  the  little 
garden,  and  its  first  appearance  aboveground  was 
that  of  a  great  stone  fireplace  and  chimney,  a 
huge  wall  of  stone  with  an  opening  ten  feet  wide 
in  front  to  hold  long  logs  which  we  foresaw  turn- 
ing to  fiery  iridescence  in  evenings  to  come. 

An  inclosure  of  frame  and  thick  silvery-gray 
slabs  in  a  twenty-five-by-thirty-foot  parallelogram 
surrounded  the  chimneypiece,  and  so  the  studio 
became  a  reality  and  waited  in  the  garden  for 
the  creative  days  which  peopled  the  future.  But 
first  must  come  its  dedication. 

I  had  a  fancy  that  the  first  fire  in  the  great 
293 


YESTERDAYS 

open  chimneyplace  should  come  to  it  with  no 
servile  tradition  in  its  origin.  It  should  be  heaven- 
born,  a  fire  free  of  all  earthly  elements.  My  hus- 
band showed  me  how  to  create  a  burning-glass 
from  one  of  my  opera-glass  lenses,  and  at  high 
noon  of  dedication  day  I  tried  it  on  the  wick  of  a 
fresh  candle ;  down  came  the  heavenly  ray  and  lit 
it!  I  blessed  it  in  my  heart,  and  inclosed  the 
candle  in  an  old  tin  lantern,  a  relic  of  pioneer  days 
which  one  of  my  farm  neighbors  had  given  me. 
Then  I  shut  the  lantern  in  a  closet,  and  lit  another 
and  still  another  from  it,  until  I  had  an  illuminated 
closet  where  heavenly  fire  was  burning. 

The  guests  came,  everybody  came,  for  in  those 
blessed  days  there  was  no  discrimination;  every 
one  was  a  friend.  They  were  seated  in  semi- 
darkness  in  the  sweet-smelling  new  studio.  Then 
through  the  open  door  came  a  small  acolyte 
swinging  a  censer,  who  scattered  oil  and  wine 
upon  the  great  altar-like  pile  of  brush  in  the  fire- 
place. And  next  followed  a  priest  of  the  Sun  in 
flowing  robes  covered  with  signs  of  the  Zodiac, 
with  outstretched  hands  which  blessed  the  fire- 
less  altar.  Then  came  four  beautiful  virgins  of 
the  Sun  with  torches  lit  from  the  sunlit  candles, 
and  they  touched  the  pile  until  light  and  flame 
went  roaring  up  the  chimney,  while  a  voice  from 
a  shadowed  angle  chanted  an  invocation  to  the 
Sun.  That  was  the  beginning  of  the  life  of  the 
studio. 

294 


ONTEORA 

I  think  we  were  always — perhaps  unconsciously 
— trying  to  resist  the  encroachment  of  conventional 
law  at  Onteora,  and  perhaps  it  was  this  which 
gave  to  all  our  gaieties  a  tinge  of  something  which 
belonged  to  ideal,  classical,  or  imaginative  periods. 
It  was  in  this  spirit  that  I  one  day  sent  a  circular 
letter  from  "Meg  Merrilies"  commanding  the 
Onteora  tribe  of  Zingari  to  a  feast  in  the  fir  grove 
of  the  south  woods.  Each  member  was  to  convey 
beforehand  to  this  spot  chickens,  ducks,  geese, 
wildfowl,  or  bear  meat,  with  herbs  and  vegetables, 
in  their  several  proportions.  There  was  an  inti- 
mation that  these  things,  according  to  gipsy  cus- 
tom, might  be  filched  or  stolen  and  "no  questions 
asked."  At  the  gathering-place  of  the  picturesque 
gipsy-clad  tribe  in  the  fir  grove  was  a  great 
caldron  suspended  on  forked  sticks  over  a  low 
wood  fire,  and  Ruth  McEnery  Stuart,  that  famous 
cook  of  things  literary  as  well  as  sublunary,  was 
presiding,  with  two  gipsy-clad  men  as  helpers, 
over  a  heaven-smelling  stew  made  after  Walter 
Scott's  recipe.  Every  one  brought  a  wooden 
plate  and  spoon,  and,  if  unregenerate,  a  silver 
fork  (presumably  stolen),  took  his  or  her  helping 
from  the  caldron,  and  sat  on  dry  old  fir  leaves  or 
tussocks  of  moss  to  eat  it.  One  could  imagine  the 
ghosts  of  Walter  Scott  and  his  famous  queen  of  the 
Zingari,  the  autocratic  old  Meg,  hovering  around 
them  in  the  shadows,  and  vainly  trying  to  satisfy 
their  hungry  longings  with  the  delectable  fumes 
295 


YESTERDAYS 

which  floated  upward.  The  feast  was  a  great 
success.  It  was  traditional  and  real!  The  fir 
branches  bent  low  and  subordinated  their  odors  to 
those  of  the  "Meg  Merrilies  stew"  concocted  by 
the  "wizard  of  the  north,"  and  repeated  on  that 
far-distant  day  by  the  "wizard  of  the  south." 
So  the  afternoon  waned  and  the  Zingari  strolled 
upward  over  the  pastures  and  fields  of  the  Show- 
ers farm,  and  through  the  Thurber  orchards  to 
the  sheltered  rest  of  "The  Bear  and  Fox,"  and 
counted  one  more  bead  upon  their  rosary  of  bliss- 
ful days  on  the  mountain. 

We  were  much  given  to  occasions  in  those  days 
presenting  all  periods  and  countries,  and  par- 
ticularly the  old  English  and  German  village  fairs, 
many  of  which  I  like  to  remember  for  their  beauty. 
When  a  new  road  around  the  mountain  was  fin- 
ished, its  opening  was  marked  by  a  woodland 
procession,  the  like  of  which  might  have  been 
seen  in  Greece  or  Rome  centuries  ago,  distinguished 
for  its  mixture  of  classicism  and  idealism.  It  was 
led  by  yokes  of  oxen  whose  necks  were  wreathed 
with  ropes  of  daisies,  carrying  bunches  of  wild 
roses  on  their  horns.  Guided  by  a  man  in  a  long 
smock  with  girdle  and  scarf  of  green,  they  drew 
a  great  wainful  of  children  dressed  as  woodland 
gods,  tossing  daisies  and  field  flowers  as  they  went 
along.  Then  came  a  car  of  humbler  beings  with 
painted  caps  and  skin-tight  suits  of  gray  muslin. 
Veritable  gnomes  they  looked,  and  they  were  fol- 
296 


ONTEORA 

lowed  by  a  Roman  centurion  on  horseback,  and 
a  Roman  emperor  and  empress,  crowned  with 
bay  and  riding  in  a  low  phaeton  which  adequately 
suggested  a  chariot  underneath  its  spreading 
draperies.  After  this  equipage  walked  a  company 
of  girls  in  straight  white  gowns  carrying  long 
wands  of  meadow-lilies,  and  a  bevy  of  maidens 
in  pale  flower-tinted  frocks  carrying  sheaves  of 
blossoming  grasses.  When  the  west  side  of  the 
mountain  was  reached  a  green  arch  spanned  the 
road  and  a  chorus  of  voices  from  among  the  trees 
hailed  the  procession. 

As  the  pageant  rounded  the  south  of  the  moun- 
tain and  came  to  the  place  where  Jeannette  Gil- 
der's "Cloud  Cabin"  was  perched  there  stood  Larry 
Hutton  at  the  door,  garbed  in  white  sheets  which, 
flowing  down  the  entrance  steps,  gave  him  an  ap- 
parent height  of  some  fifteen  feet,  his  outstretched 
hands  offering  libations,  and  a  legend  across  his 
breast  saying,  "I  am  the  ghost  of  last  summer," 
meaning  the  wonderful  summer  of  Mark  Twain's 
visit. 

But  the  most  aerial  and  beautiful  spectacle  of 
those  illusion-loving  days  came  later;  it  was  im- 
agined and  given  visible  form  by  Mrs.  Ripley 
Hitchcock  in  a  summer  evening  on  the  meadow 
below  her  house.  It  was  a  ballet  of  "will-o'-the- 
wisps"  who  came  covered  with  gray  gauze  wrap- 
pings, each  with  a  little  electric  lamp  above  the 
forehead,  and  it  was  danced  to  faint  string  music 
297 


YESTERDAYS 

and  low  voices.  To  see  the  gossamer  gray  gar- 
ments and  twinkling  lights,  and  hear  the  rhythmic 
music  under  the  moonlight,  was  the  most  poetical 
of  spectacles. 

There  was  an  unwilling  company  of  the  original 
owners  of  the  mountain  camped  just  below  the 
Inn  and  hedged  about  with  iron  and  wire.  There 
was  Susy,  the  bear,  who  had  formerly  lived  in 
freedom  among  the  great  standing  and  fallen  hem- 
locks at  the  very  top  of  the  mountain,  and  a 
family  of  foxes  dug  from  one  of  its  rock  ledges 
when  they  were  but  babies,  all  slate-colored  like 
Maltese  kittens,  but  growing  afterward  into  their 
heritage  of  red  fox  fur;  and  there  were  sulky, 
cowering  woodchucks,  and  flying-squirrels,  and 
gray  squirrels,  and  red  squirrels,  all  familiar  in- 
habitants of  the  mountain,  captured  and  brought 
into  the  daylight  of  civilization  to  amuse  and  in- 
struct human  people  of  smaller  or  larger  growth. 

But  captivity  seemed  somehow  at  variance  with 
the  spirit  of  the  mountain.  It  savored  too  much 
of  the  lower  world,  and  we  resolved  upon  an 
Emancipation  Day,  and  prepared  a  Proclamation 
of  Emancipation.  All  of  human  Onteora,  big 
or  little,  and  all  loitering  travelers  of  the  high- 
road, and  all  dwellers  on  neighboring  farms,  came 
together  to  see  the  deed  of  liberation.  It  began 
with  the  little  ones,  the  squirrels,  who,  when  the 
wire  fronts  were  removed,  were  so  dazed  by  the 
publicity  of  the  function  that  they  shrank  into 
298 


ONTEORA 

corners  and  refused  to  "liberate."  But  finally 
they  sprang  out  one  by  one  and  scurried  into  the 
treetops,  putting  yards  of  height  and  growth  be- 
tween them  and  their  emancipators.  The  hedge- 
hogs also  declined  to  go,  while  the  woodchucks 
made  hesitating  but  final  rushes  into  the  open. 
But  the  foxes  flew  as  if  their  feet  were  winged  over 
the  open  ground  and  into  the  shelter  of  the  woods. 

"And  one  low  churl  compact  of  thankless  earth  " 
fired  a  surreptitious  gun  at  them  in  their  flight; 
but  even  then,  like  Godiva  of  old,  they  "reached 
the  gateway"  of  the  wood  and  vanished  into 
liberty,  and  so  ended  one  palpable  illustration  of 
the  wildness  of  Onteora. 

Of  all  the  goodly  company  Susy  remained  alone, 
awaiting  transportation  to  the  menagerie  of  Cen- 
tral Park.  There  was  an  amusing  little  sequel  to 
the  Emancipation  story.  My  son,  Dunham,  and 
my  grandson,  Henry  Stimson,  were  both  ardent 
sportsmen,  and  friends  with  all  the  country  men 
who  were  distinguished  as  "great  hunters";  they 
had,  in  fact,  made  many  unsuccessful  bear-hunts 
in  their  company.  On  one  occasion  when  these 
men  had  killed  a  bear  it  happened  that  our  boys 
had  not  been  asked  to  join  in  the  hunt  and  the 
oversight  rankled. 

There  was  a  large  space  in  front  of  Susy's  cage 

which  was  always  kept  fresh  with  sawdust,  and 

as  this  had  been  well  trampled  on  Emancipation 

Day  it  was  smoothly  covered  when  the  day  was 

299 


YESTERDAYS 

over.  Dunham  had  the  gift  of  observation  and 
knew  the  look  of  a  bear  track.  Late  at  night  he 
took  a  lantern,  went  down  to  Susy's  cage,  and 
spent  a  careful  hour  on  his  hands  and  knees  mak- 
ing bear  tracks  over  the  fresh  sawdust,  with  the 
palms  of  his  hands  well  pressed  down,  the  fingers 
clenched  and  used  as  claws.  It  made  a  capital 
impression,  finished  up  with  artistic  touches  show- 
ing where  the  bear  had  sat  up  in  front  of  Susy's 
cage  in  insistent  salutation.  When  he  was  satis- 
fied with  his  efforts  he  came  home  and  went  to 
bed  with  a  happy  consciousness  of  a  deed  well 
done.  He  had  succeeded  in  arousing  all  the  dogs 
of  the  neighborhood  by  his  prowlings,  and  in  the 
morning  there  were  growing  rumors  of  a  disturbed 
night;  dogs  had  barked,  and  somebody  had  seen 
what  looked  like  bear  tracks  in  front  of  Susy's 
cage.  All  the  hunters  came  to  see  them  and  pro- 
nounced them  sure-enough  tracks  "of  a  great  he- 
bear,"  and  that  accounted  for  the  barking  of  the 
dogs.  To  quiet  the  apprehensions  of  the  Inn 
guests  the  true  inwardness  of  the  tale  was  told 
in  confidence,  and  the  sufficient  self -enjoyment  of 
the  hunters  in  their  own  supreme  knowledge  and 
experience  was  a  source  of  much  enjoyment  to 
the  boy-man  who  had  imagined  and  created  this 
sensation. 

Mr.  Carroll  Beckwith  was  the  first  of  our  painter 
residents,  and  his  house  was  built  on  a  projecting 
ledge  of  the  Onteora  Mountain.    It  looked  to  the 
300 


ONTEORA 

south  over  the  long  valley  to  Hunter  Mountain, 
on  whose  inaccessible  heights  bear  and  deer  still 
made  their  homes.  The  view  extends  over  Mink 
Hollow  along  the  procession  of  unnamed  moun- 
tains, until  it  reaches  two  great  peaks,  one  rounded 
and  the  other  sharp  and  pointed,  which  the  Ind- 
ians called  Cloudmaker  and  Cloudbreaker,  the 
far-distant  Hudson  gleaming  between.  I  wish 
we  could  have  retained  the  Indian  words  which 
clothed  these  two  descriptive  thoughts,  just  as 
descriptive  of  facts  as  the  Round  Top  and  High 
Peak  of  plainer  rustic  Saxon  speech.  Here  in  the 
face  of  this  delectable  sky  and  mountain  picture 
dwelt  the  kindly,  courtly  man  and  skilful  drafts- 
man and  painter  through  the  summer  of  many 
years,  painting  the  portraits  of  many  Onteorians, 
receiving  pupils  in  the  great  studio  which  stood 
at  the  back  of  his  house,  and  charming  the  audi- 
ences which  met  for  his  instructive  morning  lect- 
ures. He  was  a  willing  and  able  assistant  in  all 
church,  library,  and  community  efforts.  The  Beck- 
withs  could  be  enlisted  in  any  scheme  for  fun  or 
frolic,  and  it  immediately  assumed  a  character 
of  novelty  and  picturesqueness.  Yes,  the  Beck- 
withs,  man  and  wife,  had  much  to  do  with  char- 
acterizing Onteora. 

There,  after  a  time,  came  the  Alexanders,  who 
chose  to  acquire  the  homestretch  of  mountain- 
side only  separated  from  the  Beckwiths  by  the 
Candice  road  which  circled  the  mountain,  the  road 
301 


YESTERDAYS 

which  Mr.  Hutton  had  named  in  priestly  garb, 
with  a  bottled  libation,  the  day  of  its  opening. 
The  house  had  been  built  by  Mr.  Ripley  Hitch- 
cock and  was  hallowed  by  the  memory  of  his  wife, 
the  beloved  friend  of  us  all,  who  had  passed  to 
a  higher  state  of  existence.  To  this  Mr.  Alexander 
added  a  large  studio,  neighbor  and  friend  to  the 
Beckwith  studio,  and  in  it  he  painted  great  frescoes 
destined  for  halls  of  legislation  in  far-away  cities. 

John  Burroughs  was  one  of  our  frequent  summer 
visitors  at  Onteora,  for  in  the  sense  of  aerial  dis- 
tance we  were  neighbors.  His  beloved  little  re- 
treat of  "Slabsides"  was  perched  on  the  longitu- 
dinal river-range  of  the  Catskills,  while  we  were 
on  a  more  northern  lateral  range.  If  one  could 
fly  across  the  triangle  of  the  delectable  mountains, 
it  would  be  but  a  short  flight  from  eyrie  to  eyrie, 
an  air-line  of  fifty  transparent  miles,  and  where  it 
rested  the  far  end  of  its  rainbow  curve  it  was  easy 
to  mind-see  little  "Slabsides"  nestling  in  the  hills, 
with  the  slanting  grape-vineyard  below,  and  lines 
of  bushy  currant  stems,  hanging  full  of  strung 
rubies  in  currant-time — and  dear,  contented,  af- 
fectionately anxious  John  Burroughs  wandering 
among  them. 

He  loved  Onteora,  which  was  a  great  bond  be- 
tween us.  He  was  and  is  so  essentially  a  part  of 
the  high,  clear  oversight  region,  and  of  air  sharp- 
ened by  height,  and  of  vastness  of  space.  The 
very  obligation  of  simplicity  which  exists  when 
302 


ONTEORA 

nature  is  in  the  ascendant  and  man  on  a  lower 
plane  made  him  what  he  is — as  clear  and  pure  as 
the  morning.  When  he  came  to  us  at  Onteora  he 
was  like  another  of  the  family,  which,  indeed,  was 
not  complete  without  him.  The  birds  and  flying- 
squirrels  and  all  of  the  things  which  we  call  wild 
— because  we  are  not  of  their  kind — seemed  to 
know  he  was  there,  and  appear  more  familiarly 
than  before;  and  as  he  wandered  inquisitively 
around  the  mountain  he  would  gradually  acquire 
a  few  of  the  Onteora  children,  beginning  with  one 
on  either  hand,  all  of  them  waiting  like  birds  at 
feeding-time  for  the  fascinating  facts  of  animate 
life  which  he  scattered  to  them.  He  was  so 
pocket-stuffed  with  these  little  secrets  of  nature 
that  they  fell  from  him  as  he  walked  and  talked. 

The  children  adored  him;  they  liked  the  flavor 
of  wisdom  and  kindliness,  and  were  greedy  of  it. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  each  one  of  them  is  to-day 
a  rich  and  happier  man  or  woman  than  if  they 
had  never  known  John  Burroughs. 

I  remember  his  leaving  the  lunch-table  one 
day  without  a  word  of  explanation,  and  following 
a  bird  note  into  the  near  woods,  explaining,  when 
he  came  back,  that  it  was  a  nesting-note  of  a  bird 
which  he  had  never  known  to  build  south  of 
Canada;  and  this  fact — that  a  certain  bird  nested 
in  our  heights  instead  of  prolonging  his  summer 
flight  to  Canada — added  another  charm  and  virtue 
to  Onteora.  At  that  period  of  his  life  he  was  one 
303 


YESTERDAYS 

of  the  most  expansive  of  men  among  friends  and  in 
the  wilds ;  but  when  he  became  conscious  of  stand- 
ing even  on  the  edge  of  prominence  he  retired  into 
the  shadow  like  a  bird  scared  out  of  the  open. 

One  evening  at  the  Inn  we  indulged  ourselves 
in  an  "authors'  reading,"  and  of  course  expected 
our  dear  guest  to  contribute  his  share.  But  he 
would  not,  and  compromised  by  making  me  a  copy 
of  his  exquisite  little  poem  of  "Waiting,"  so  that 
I  might  have  it  read  by  some  one  of  fewer  gifts 
and  less  modesty.  I  had  never  thought  of  him 
as  a  poet  except  in  the  sense  of  his  poetical  life 
among  the  creatures  of  nature,  but  here  was  some- 
thing which  expressed  not  only  the  poetry,  but 
the  philosophy  of  life. 

Serene,  I  fold  my  hands  and  wait, 
Nor  care  for  wind  nor  tide  nor  sea; 

I  rave  no  more  'gainst  time  or  fate, 
For,  lo!  my  own  shall  come  to  me. 

I  stay  my  haste,  I  make  delays; 

For  what  avails  this  eager  pace? 
I  stand  amid  the  eternal  ways 

And  what  is  mine  shall  know  my  face. 

Asleep,  awake,  by  night  or  day, 
The  friends  I  seek  are  seeking  me; 

No  wind  can  drive  my  bark  astray, 
Nor  change  the  tide  of  destiny. 

What  matter  if  I  stand  alone? 

I  wait  with  joy  the  coming  years; 
My  heart  shall  reap  where  it  has  sown, 

And  garner  up  the  fruit  of  tears. 
3°4 


ONTEORA 

The  waters  know  their  own,  and  draw 
The  brook  that  springs  in  yonder  heights; 

So  flows  the  good  with  equal  law 
Unto  the  soul  of  pure  delights. 

The  stars  come  nightly  to  the  sky, 

The  tidal  wave  unto  the  sea; 
Nor  time  nor  space,  nor  deep  nor  high, 

Can  keep  my  own  away  from  me. 

I  have  always  loved  this  poem,  which  seems  to 
breathe  the  very  spirit  of  peace  which  was  and 
is  a  part  of  the  man. 

The  short  letters  and  familiarly  scrappy  notes 
from  John  Burroughs,  which  I  am  wrapping  in 
tissue-paper  for  the  enrichment  of  my  grand- 
children, came  very  often  to  Onteora,  and  when 
I  found  one — left  by  the  post-boy  on  the  piazza 
table — it  was  easy  to  believe  it  had  flown  over 
from  "Slabsides."  They  were  nearly  all  answers 
to  invitations  to  Onteora,  but  there  was  always 
something  personal  tangled  in  with  news  about 
the  grape  and  currant  harvest,  something  with 
the  flavor  of  the  wide  open-air  life  on  the  beautiful 
mountains,  with  the  mirror  of  the  great  river  re- 
flecting them  in  green  and  blue  between  its  floating 
business  and  its  ships,  something  humanely  affec- 
tionate and  sweet. 

Here  are  a  few  letters  from  my  tissue-papers : 

WEST  PARK,  N.  Y., 

August  19,  1894. 

DEAR  MRS.  WHEELER,— I  received  the  other  day  a  type- 
written letter  from  Onteora  without  signature.    I  concluded 
20  305 


YESTERDAYS 

it  was  from  a  person  of  many  affairs.  Of  course  the  kind 
invitation  and  other  things  made  me  know  it  was  from  you. 
It  always  sets  me  up  a  day  or  two,  to  get  an  invitation  from 
Onteora,  even  when  I  cannot  accept  it.  This  time  I  am 
compelled  to  decline  it  because  my  own  busy  time  has  arrived 
— the  grape  harvest.  We  opened  the  campaign  some  days 
ago,  and  I  see  no  rest  for  a  month  to  come  at  least.  Accept 
my  hearty  thanks  for  the  invitation  and  give  my  love  to 
Dora  and  the  baby.  I  have  never  written  any  kind  of  a 
story  that  would  be  available  for  the  occasion  you  speak  of. 
Wish  I  had.  Very  sincerely, 

JOHN  BURROUGHS. 

WEST  PARK,  N.  Y., 

Aug.  2jd,  1888. 

MY  DEAR  Miss  WHEELER, — If  Friday  is  a  fair  day  I  am 
coming  up  to  your  celestial  hills.  Look  for  me  on  the  morning 
train  or  the  morning  cloud.  Three  days  is  all  the  fates  will 
allow  me  in  your  altitude  at  this  time. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

JOHN  BURROUGHS. 

WEST  PARK,  N.  Y., 

June  jo,  1891. 

DEAR  MRS.  WHEELER, — I  thank  you  very  much  for  your 
kind  invitation.  I  think  I  can  come,  I  certainly  would  like 
to,  but  a  man  who  is  tethered  to  a  grape-vine  as  I  am  can 
not  always  tell  what  he  can  do. 

But  I  will  say  I  will  come,  &  if  I  do  not  it  will  be  because 
I  cannot  possibly  get  away  from  home. 
With  kindest  remembrances,  I  am, 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

JOHN  BURROUGHS. 

WEST  PARK,  N.  Y., 

June  17,  1895. 

DEAR  MRS.  WHEELER,— When  I  wrote  you  the  other  day 
that  I  would  come  to  Onteora  on  Wednesday  I  had  forgot- 
306 


ONTEORA 

ten  that  on  that  day  the  Riverview  Academy,  where  my 
boy  is  at  school,  holds  its  Commencement  &  that  I  want 
to  be  there.  Then  on  Friday  is  the  big  boat-race  here  at 
Pokeepsie,  &  I  want  to  see  that  also.  So  that  I  shall  hardly 
be  able  to  get  to  you  this  month,  as  next  week  my  currant 
crop  will  demand  my  attention.  But  later  in  the  season 
I  hope  to  be  able  to  bring  it  about. 

Sincerely  yours, 

JOHN  BURROUGHS. 

It  was  generally  our  particular  friends  who 
came  in  to  stay  for  longer  or  shorter  periods  at 
the  Inn — those  who  had  visited  us  in  our  cabin 
and  eaten  our  roasted  corn  between  rocks,  or 
sat  in  the  moonlight  on  my  brother's  broad  piazza, 
listening  to  wonderful  music  played  upon  the 
piano  which  toiling  oxen  had  brought  along  the 
steep  zigzag  heights  of  the  old  Catskill  road. 
Friends  who  had  spent  the  days  with  us  in  the 
open,  playing  with  our  tamed  fox  cubs  or  climb- 
ing mountains  by  day  and  sleeping  away  at  night 
the  tire  of  tramping  days  in  our  little  bedrooms. 

The  Clemenses  had  been  among  these,  and  the 
second  summer  of  our  life  as  a  community  the 
family  came  to  the  Inn  for  the  season — the  father 
and  mother,  and  Clara,  Susy,  and  "Little  Jean." 
They  took  "Balsam,"  a  bit  of  cottage  across  the 
road  from  the  Inn,  and  it  became  a  sort  of  jewel- 
box  for  the  summer  —  a  thing  that  held  values 
untold. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Laurence  Hutton  were  a  part  of 
the  Onteora  community  and  spent  many  sum- 
3°7 


YESTERDAYS 

mers  in  our  wonderful  mountain  land.  Mr.  Hut- 
ton's  peculiar  friendliness  of  disposition  made  him 
a  delightful  neighbor.  He  welcomed  joyfully 
those  who  insisted  upon  knowing  him,  and,  un- 
like many  impulsive,  friendly  people,  remembered 
them  always;  he  never  lost  grip  upon  a  friend. 

My  husband  and  he  fell  into  a  very  close  inti- 
macy, although  the  road  to  my  good  man's  heart 
was  not  a  blazed  trail.  But  Larry,  the  friend- 
liest person  in  the  whole  wide  world,  found  it,  and 
every  plaster  cast  in  his  wonderful  collection  of  casts 
of  human  faces  became  as  dear  and  interesting  to 
my  husband  as  they  were  to  the  collector  himself. 

It  was  at  their  hospitable  house  in  New  York 
that  I  met  that  marvel  of  humanity,  Helen  Keller. 
We  were  introduced  to  each  other  early  in  the 
evening,  and,  later,  seeing  her  sitting  by  herself 
on  a  sofa,  I  joined  her  and  found,  to  my  delight, 
that  the  instant  she  touched  me  she  recognized  me. 
In  a  few  moments  Joseph  Jefferson,  who  was  an 
habitue  of  the  house,  sat  down  at  the  end  of  the 
sofa  next  Miss  Keller. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Jefferson,"  said  she,  just  as  any  other 
enthusiastic  young  girl  might  have  said,  "I  saw 
you  in  'Rip  Van  Winkle'  last  night." 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Jefferson,  "I  saw  you  in  the 
stage  box,  and  your  friend,  Miss  Sullivan,  telling 
you  about  it.  I  am  having  the  play  put  in  raised 
letters  for  the  blind,  and  I  shall  dedicate  it  to  my 
little  friend,  Helen  Keller." 
308 


ONTEORA 

She  drew  away  the  listening  hand  which  he 
had  held  to  his  lips,  and  suddenly  seized  and  kissed 
him  as  impulsively  as  a  child  would  have  done. 
Mr.  Jefferson  was  not  at  all  dazed  by  this  demon- 
stration of  gladness,  but  went  on  with  his  ex- 
planation. I  asked  Miss  Sullivan,  the  wonderful 
friend  and  teacher  who  had  opened  the  doors  of 
the  world  to  this  doubly-prisoned  child-soul,  how 
she  had  ever  been  able  to  reach  it  through  its 
walls. 

"When  her  mother  first  showed  her  to  me," 
said  she,  "I  looked  at  her  with  dismay — she 
seemed  such  a  fluttering,  violent  atom  of  flesh ;  but 
the  first  thought  I  had  was  to  calm  her  and,  if  I 
could,  to  please  her;  whereupon  I  gave  her  a  doll. 
I  could  see  that  she  had  a  distinct  idea  of  people 
— she  knew  them  and  did  not  love  anybody  but 
her  mother;  but  she  loved  the  doll,  and  I  kept 
regiving  it  whenever  it  dropped  from  her  arms. 
Then  as  soon  as  she  began  to  look  for  me  to  help 
her,  I  put  her  hand  on  my  lips  and  said:  'Doll! 
Doll !  Doll ! '  After  a  while  she  began  to  expect 
this,  and  one  day  she  puckered  her  lips  and  tried 
to  imitate  what  I  was  doing.  Instead  of  an  un- 
couth sound  or  shriek,  which,  according  to  her 
moods,  was  her  usual  form  of  utterance,  she  said 
something  which  approached  the  word  'Doll,' 
and  after  that  I  had  no  trouble.  She  seemed  at 
once  to  realize  that  this  meant  a  means  of  com- 
munication and  was  wildly  eager  for  it.  She 
309 


YESTERDAYS 

would  put  her  hand  to  my  lips  whenever  she 
touched  anything,  and  repeat  the  word  I  gave 
her.  No  child  ever  learned  words  more  quickly." 

I  drew  a  long  breath  and  looked  at  the  woman 
who  had  done  this  thing,  and  thought  of  the  angel 
leading  Peter  out  of  prison  into  the  starry  night 
of  Galilee.  Afterward  I  saw  much  of  this  wonder- 
ful pair  of  minds,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  no 
greater  triumph  was  ever  achieved  than  this  one 
of  giving  knowledge  where  nature  had  utterly 
denied  the  means.  The  experiment  of  articula- 
tion without  hearing  interested  me  to  the  extent 
of  practice,  and  I  learned  several  things  by  it — 
first,  that  the  lips  alone  cannot  say  a  word,  open 
and  close  them  as  you  will;  second,  that  some 
words,  like  "doll,"  need  the  touch  of  the  tongue 
upon  the  roof  of  the  mouth ;  third,  that  the  sound 
itself,  without  shape,  starts  from  a  wish  and  im- 
pulse of  command,  which  sets  the  human  ma- 
chinery of  throat  and  palate  in  motion ;  and  fourth, 
that  the  achievement  of  Helen  Keller's  language 
was  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  soul. 

The  piazza  of  the  Hutton  house  was  never 
without  its  group  of  exceptional  men,  and  their 
exchange  of  views  of  life  was  certainly  a  broaden- 
ing experience.  Brander  Matthews,  John  Weir, 
Heber  Newton,  and  Mark  Twain,  all  uttering  their 
own  opinions  from  their  differing  points  of  view, 
and  softening  the  rigor  of  earnestness  by  an  oc- 
casional story  from  Jamie  Dodge,  whom  Mark 
310 


ONTEORA 

Twain  pronounced  "the  greatest  story-teller  in 
America,"  was  an  experience  worth  having. 

Those  who  were  our  friends  at  Onteora  were 
our  friends  wherever  the  chances  of  life  might 
carry  us,  and  although,  with  but  few  exceptions, 
they  have  passed  into  regions  of  higher  experience 
and  knowledge,  I  am  the  richer  for  having  known 
them  before  they  had  taken  the  next  degree  of  the 
soul. 

January,  igi6. 

I  have  just  read  in  a  New  York  paper  of  Jean- 
nette  Gilder's  death.  It  is  strange  how  the  fact 
of  death  is  so  much  harder  to  realize  in  the  case 
of  some  people  than  of  others.  When  I  was  told 
some  years  ago  of  her  brother,  Richard  Gilder's 
death,  it  seemed  to  me  a  perfectly  natural  thing 
that  he  had  passed  into  another  world,  and  yet 
he  was  a  lovely  and  welcome  presence  in  this.  I 
suppose  it  was  because  the  spiritual  element  was 
predominant  in  his  face  and  life,  that  which  we 
call  the  spiritual  world  seemed  his  natural  sur- 
roundings. I  remember  him  now  many  years  ago 
sitting  for  his  portrait  in  the  Twenty-third  Street 
studio;  and  as  the  afternoon  drew  on,  and  it  be- 
came too  dark  to  carry  on  the  painting,  he  fell 
into  talk  of  a  very  subtle  and  thoughtful  kind. 
His  low,  evenly  balanced  sentences,  and  poetical 
face  illuminated  with  a  kind  of  inner  light,  made 
an  impression  which  I  have  never  forgotten  and 
which  it  would  be  hard  to  transfer  to  canvas.  If 


YESTERDAYS 

it  were,  it  would  be  a  portrait  of  the  spirit  as  well 
as  of  the  flesh. 

All  of  this  is  brought  vividly  to  mind — in  try- 
ing to  realize  that  dear  Jeannette  Gilder  has  also 
gone  into  another  world,  although  she  fitted  so 
appropriately  in  the  world  of  mortals.  Something 
in  her  physical  aspect — the  healthiness  of  it,  the 
long,  easy  stride  of  her  walk,  the  frank  brusque- 
ness  of  her  speech,  was  suggestive  of  the  strength 
of  both  mind  and  body,  and  one  can  hardly  realize 
its  absence  from  sight. 

She  was  one  of  the  first  of  our  cottage  builders 
and  owners  at  Onteora,  and  she  called  the  com- 
fortable rustic  house  she  built  upon  the  south 
side  of  the  mountain,  full  face  to  the  sky,  "Cloud 
Cabin."  When  it  seemed  to  her  desirable  to  have 
a  mountain-ash  tree  growing  beside  the  nearest 
ledge  of  rocks,  and  some  one  suggested  the  diffi- 
culty of  transplantation,  she  said,  airily:  "Oh, 
I  shall  ask  Mrs.  Wheeler  to  plant  it.  If  she  sticks 
an  umbrella  in  the  ground,  it  grows."  Dear  Jean- 
nette !  What  a  refreshing  creature  she  was !  Her 
honesty  and  directness  and  clear  insight  seemed 
to  wash  the  face  of  every  morning  that  dawned 
upon  the  mountains.  She  was  so  essentially  of 
the  day  that  I  cannot  realize  she  has  passed  into 
the  night  of  life.  As  I  recall  the  personality  of 
this  good  woman  and  good  friend,  it  brings  with 
it  that  of  the  pair  whom  we  always  called  "The 
Gilders" — Richard  Gilder  and  his  wife — who  were 
312 


ONTEORA 

like  a  double  being,  endowed  with  all  the  quali- 
ties which  give  charm  to  both  man  and  woman. 
While  Onteora  was  building  and  "growing  in 
grace,"  they  were  often  with  us,  greatly  to  our 
enjoyment. 

Dear  Onteora !  whose  primitive  garb  has  changed 
at  the  touch  of  the  many-braided  wand  of  the 
world,  as  Cinderella's  rusticity  fell  from  her  when 
she  felt  the  touch  of  the  fairy's  wand.  And  yet  it 
was  the  rustic  simplicity,  the  attempt  to  materi- 
alize a  dream  of  natural  life,  which  brought  to- 
gether the  dear  souls  who  first  peopled  it — Frank 
Thurber,  who  did  so  much  toward  embodying  the 
dream,  and  Jeannette  and  Richard  Gilder;  Mark 
Twain  and  Frank  Stockton  and  sparkling  Mary 
Mapes  Dodge;  Laurence  Hutton,  who  more  than 
most  men  had  "the  'gift'  for  friendship";  Jarvis 
McEntee,  the  pensive  painter  of  November  days, 
and  Jamie  Dodge  with  his  wonderful  story-telling 
facility  which  included  perfect  imitations  of  our 
many-languaged  emigrants.  There  were  others 
still  on  this  planet  which  we  claim  as  "ours,"  but 
those  whom  I  have  named  have  gone  before.  I  am 
thinking  of  them  one  after  another  with  a  tender 
melancholy.  Some  one  once  told  me  of  Emer- 
son in  his  later  years,  when  he  had  lost  his  memory 
of  the  sound  of  names  of  even  intimate  friends, 
that  he  had  gone  with  his  family  to  the  funeral 
of  Longfellow.  After  returning  he  said,  musingly: 
"The  gentleman  whose  funeral  I  attended  to-day 
313 


YESTERDAYS 

— I  have  forgotten  his  name — was  a  beautiful 
soul."  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  touching  and 
perfect  tribute  to  spiritual  quality  that  when  the 
very  name  of  a  daily  friend  was  forgotten — the 
name  which  was  the  label  of  his  spirit — the  being 
himself  was  accurately  and  vividly  remembered. 

As  I  think  of  these  friends  whom  I  have  known 
in  spirit  as  well  as  body,  they  were  every  one 
"beautiful  souls"!  Beautiful  in  endowment  and 
insight.  Beautiful  in  their  relation  to  one  an- 
other and  the  world,  and  for  this  they  will  be  long 
remembered. 

At  the  Gilder  house  in  Tenth  Street  one  was 
sure  to  meet  "everybody  who  was  somebody." 
It  was  a  somebody  gathering-place,  for  the  host 
and  hostess  had  the  gift  or  gifts  which  attract. 
A  great  magazine  is  a  sort  of  net  for  ability,  and 
its  editor  can  take  his  pick  of  the  world  for  his 
friends  if  he  has  also  the  human  sympathy  which 
is  the  gift  of  gifts.  Any  one  of  personal  note  from 
other  countries  gravitated  with  certainty  to  the 
Gilder  evenings,  and  American  poets,  writers, 
painters,  and  actors  were  there  to  receive  them. 
I  remember  talking  with  Mr.  Gilder  on  one  of 
these  evenings  when  we  were  really  congratulating 
ourselves  and  each  other  upon  the  hour's  enjoy- 
ment, the  satisfaction  of  seeing  at  close  range  so 
many  one  wanted  to  see,  and  meeting  so  many  it 
was  a  permanent  pleasure  to  have  met;  we  spoke 
of  Stevenson,  who  was  in  town,  but  in  a  state  of 


ONTEORA 

health,  or  want  of  health,  which  kept  him  tem- 
porarily in  bed.  And  talking  of  him,  Mr.  Gilder 
told  me  a  delightful  little  story  of  some  one — 
perhaps  himself — going  to  visit  Stevenson  in  his 
room  and  telling  him  of  Matthew  Arnold's  death. 

"Why,"  said  Stevenson,  eagerly,  "he  won't 
like  God." 

Was  ever  the  critical  attitude  of  a  man's  mind 
summed  up  so  quickly  and  perfectly?  It  in- 
cluded the  gist  of  Arnold's  utterances  from  be- 
ginning to  end. 

There  was  another  house  in  New  York  which 
had  the  same  lure  of  interesting  humanity  as  the 
Gilders',  that  of  Laurence  Hutton.  These  two 
homes  were  permanent  centers  of  personal  dis- 
tinction. In  each  case  there  were  the  two  prime 
attractions  which  made  them  centers.  The  first 
was,  ability  of  some  kind  which  had  made  its 
own  mark,  and  the  next  was  a  warm  and  genuine 
feeling  of  brotherhood  of  spirit  and  an  instinctive 
impulse  to  step  inside  the  halo  and  claim  the  rela- 
tion. It  was  almost  a  distinction  to  be  one  of  the 
crowd  in  either  of  these  houses ;  it  was  a  certificate 
of  worthiness  of  aim  or  character  and  it  included 
a  capability  of  appreciation  of  widely  dissimilar 
people.  When  I  think  of  those  habitual  and  de- 
lightful evenings  in  the  Gilder  and  Hutton  homes, 
it  is  with  a  half -melancholy  at  their  impermanence. 
If  such  experiences  could  be  fixed,  like  the  plates 
of  a  camera,  if  we  could  photograph  occasions, 
315 


YESTERDAYS 

or  even  if  they  could  be  floated  off  in  a  spherical 
concrete  to  be  hung  in  some  great  library  of  the 
universe — as  they  might  be  if  "thoughts  are 
things" — it  would  be  a  storehouse  of  mental 
preserves  wherewith  to  flavor  the  dullness  of  life. 
Let  me  add  one  of  Mrs.  Gilder's  intimate  letters : 

FOUR  BROOKS  FARM, 

TYRINGHAM,  MASS., 

July  ij,  i8gg. 

DEAREST  MRS.  WHEELER, — Thank  you  all  you  and  Mrs. 
Custer  and  Mrs.  Stuart  for  your  telegram  bidding  us  to 
Onteora.  It  would  have  been  a  great  pleasure  to  us  to  go, 
but  we  were  in  Boston  the  week  before  and  our  bairns  would 
have  been  desolate  had  we  spent  the  Fourth  so  far  from  them. 
But  we  were  with  you  in  spirit  and  thought.  How  jolly  you 
must  all  have  been  together  in  beautiful  Onteora!  I  hope  to 
go  some  time — the  place  must  be  looking  very  pretty  now. 

How  are  you  and  Dora  and  the  babies?  I  do  not  know  any- 
thing about  you  all,  as  Mariana  does  not  keep  me  posted 
as  she  used  to  do. 

I  was  looking  over  some  of  Mr.  Lowell's  letters  the  other 
day  and  came  upon  a  glowing  allusion  to  Dora.  What  won- 
derful letters!  There  is  no  one  who  writes  that  way.  They 
belong  to  the  past  age!  But  aren't  they  just  perfect? 

What  has  Dora  done  with  her  letters  from  him?  They 
should  be  kept  with  care  for  her  children  and  all  copied. 

We  are  all  very  contented  on  our  farm.  The  children 
adore  it  and  the  older  ones  hate  to  leave  it  for  a  day.  I 
should  love  to  show  it  to  you! 

Miss  Rogers  is  here,  and  the  children  work  hard  at  their 
music — that  is  the  only  thing,  with  a  little  German,  that 
must  be  done,  and  when  that  is  finished  the  joys  of  mowing- 
machines,  haying,  fishing,  and  donkey-riding  never  fail. 

Dear  Mrs.  Custer!  Give  her  and  Mrs.  Stuart  my  love. 
I  was  so  very  sorry  to  miss  Mrs.  Ouster's  last  visit.  Two 


ONTEORA 

great  events  have  happened.  June  third  was  our  Silver 
Wedding,  a  sweet,  homelike  event.  June  28th  our  boy  took 
his  degree  at  Harvard.  We  went  to  Commencement.  It 
was  very  interesting  and  impressive.  Accept  for  yourself 
and  dear  Mr.  Wheeler  my  ever  fond  affection. 

Yours  sincerely  &  gratefully, 

HELENA  GILDER. 

In  those  days  so  enriched  by  friendship  we 
saw  much  of  Frank  Stockton,  and  it  was  pleasant 
to  know  a  man  who  habitually  associated  with 
such  refreshing  characters  as  Pomona  of  Rudder 
Grange  and  the  two  friends,  Mrs.  Leeks  and  Mrs. 
Aleshine,  who  went  sailing  out  to  the  deep  wearing 
black  stockings  "on  account  of  sharks."  Even 
the  lady,  who  played  the  heartless  part  of  The 
Lady  and  the  Tiger,  was  pleasant  to  know  at  first 
hand.  These  creations,  which  never  grew  up, 
but  were  introduced  to  the  world  in  full  maturity 
by  Stockton,  have  rested  many  a  weary  soul, 
tired  of  world-work  and  world-fiction. 

Mr.  Stockton's  physical  presentment  was  that 
of  a  small,  melancholy-eyed  man,  who  looked  as 
if  he  had  been  obliged  to  take  refuge  from  the 
sameness  or  sadness  of  the  world  into  one  specially 
created  for  him,  peopled  with  unspoiled  beings 
whose  angles  had  never  been  shaped  into  smooth- 
ness by  civilization,  creatures  of  innocence  and 
impulses.  If  the  author  had  been  labeled  as  to 
origin,  as  are  German  manufactures — "Made  in 
Germany" — he  would  have  worn  somewhere 
about  him  the  legend,  "Made  in  Fairy-land"; 


YESTERDAYS 

and,  indeed,  to  those  who  could  read  unwritten 
things  it  was  to  be  seen  in  his  face.  It  had  an 
expression  of  friendly  aloofness,  too  friendly  to  be 
repellent,  but  sufficiently  distinct  to  discourage 
familiarity;  and  the  mixture  had  a  certain  charm 
— it  gave  one  an  impression  of  being  smiled  at 
from  an  upper  window,  or  of  an  affectionate  letter 
from  the  other  side  of  the  world. 

He  was  not  a  talker ;  what  he  said  was  responsive, 
not  voluntary,  but  sometimes  of  an  evening,  when 
the  logs  were  burning  brightly  in  the  large  old 
studio  at  Onteora  where  he  and  Mrs.  Stockton 
often  visited  us,  he  would  tell  us  tales  spun  from 
the  fiber  of  his  brain,  that  made  us  feel  quite  inti- 
mate with  the  man  inside  of  him.  It  was  a  kindly, 
whimsical,  dignified  personality,  beautiful  to  look 
at  from  without  or  within. 

When  we  visited  the  Stocktons  at  their  New 
Jersey  home — and  my  daughter  was  painting  his 
portrait — whatever  he  was  writing  went  on  as  if 
nothing  else  was  happening,  Mrs.  Stockton  sit- 
ting at  the  window  by  a  typewriter,  and  Mr. 
Stockton  walking  up  and  down  the  room  mono- 
loguing  his  stories,  or  posing  quietly  for  a  few 
moments  in  response  to  occasional  demands  of  the 
artist.  It  was  the  most  spontaneous  act  of  com- 
position, and  impressed  one  not  as  an  effort,  or 
even  as  an  expression  of  thought ;  it  was  more  like 
reading  aloud.  In  one  of  these  intervals  of  dic- 
tation the  talk  turned  upon  the  characters  of 
318 


ONTEORA 

some  of  his  books,  and  I  said  that  of  them  all 
I  liked  Pomona  best,  and  was  entirely  in  sympathy 
with  her  love  of  romantic  literature.  Lord  George 
and  his  kin  seemed  to  me  to  embody  all  the  simple 
story-telling  charm  of  early  English  heroes  of 
fiction.  Mr.  Stockton  himself  liked  Pomona; 
and  as  for  Mrs.  Stockton,  she  was  so  unwilling 
to  part  with  her  that  she  had  serious  thought  of 
continuing  the  acquaintance  indefinitely. 

The  painter  stopped  her  work  long  enough  to 
give  her  preference  for  The  Minor  Canon  and 
the  Dragon,  and  Mr.  Stockton  agreed  with  her 
warmly;  afterward,  when  she  married,  he  sent 
Dora  a  little  Japanese  bronze  dragon,  with  a  note 
regretting  that  the  Canon  had  never  attained  the 
distinction  of  bronze;  otherwise  he  would  have 
accompanied  the  Dragon. 

It  was  one  of  the  anomalies  of  this  quiet,  absent- 
minded,  and  almost  physically  weak  man  that  he 
loved  driving  fast  and  spirited  horses,  which  might 
have  taxed  the  skill  of  far  stronger  men  than  he; 
but  there  was  something  in  the  power  of  control 
and  guidance  which  had  an  irresistible  fascina- 
tion for  him.  His  devoted  wife  would  sit  calmly 
on  the  seat  beside  him  while  the  horse  pranced 
and  curveted  like  a  mad  Pegasus,  but  I  steadily 
declined  his  invitations,  saying  frankly  that  I  was 
"afraid  of  horses." 

"You  don't  look  like  a  woman  who  is  constitu- 
tionally afraid,"  he  replied,  and  probably  knew 
319 


YESTERDAYS 

that  it  was  not  horses  in  general,  or  even  in  par- 
ticular which  daunted  me,  since  my  own  especial 
man  loved  to  measure  his  skill  against  the  will  of 
a  froward  horse,  and  I  was  often  a  party  to  the 
contest. 

I  sometimes  wonder  whether  all  these  dear  and 
exceptional  people  whom  I  have  known  in  their 
companionship  with  the  flesh,  but  who  are  now 
freed  souls,  meet  together  in  pleasant  companion- 
ship in  that  world  toward  which  we  are  so  inevi- 
tably tending;  and  whether  the  soul-personality 
will  be  sufficiently  related  to  the  old  bodily  in- 
casement  as  to  be  unmistakably  the  same!  I 
have  so  many  friends  who  have  "gone  on"!  and 
they  were  so  variously  and  lovably  and  strongly 
personal.  Sometimes  in  my  dreams  I  meet  them, 
and  I  have  no  hesitation  in  greeting  them  with 
a  happy,  "Oh  how  glad  I  am  to  see  you!" 

I  have  no  doubt  there  are  myriads  of  other 
"beautiful  souls"  in  heaven,  but  I  should  cer- 
tainly miss  my  "life  friends,"  my  good  this-life 
friends!  And  "the  Stocktons"  were  surely  of 
them.  Here  are  some  of  their  letters  from  my 
old  post-bag : 

THE  HOLT, 

CONVENT  STATION, 

NEW  JERSEY. 

Friday  2gth. 

MY  DEAR  Miss  DORA, — Your  note  of  the  24th  reached  me 
to-day,  and  I  write  to  say  that  we  are  greatly  disappointed 
not  to  see  you  and  your  mother  before  you  go  away  for  the 
320 


ONTEORA 

winter.  We  had  so  counted  upon  your  visit.  Will  you 
please  let  us  know  when  you  return  in  the  Spring?  We  live 
so  out  of  the  world  that  you  may  be  home  a  month  before  we 
hear  of  it.  And  we  do  not  intend  to  lose  that  Spring  visit. 
You  and  your  mother  must  include  that  in  your  plans,  and 
do  not  allow  yourselves  to  make  so  many  engagements  as  to 
crowd  us  out. 

"The  book"1  is  a  treasure.  You  have,  indeed,  made  it 
valuable.  The  illustrations  are  charming,  and  Mr.  Stockton, 
who  did  not  expect  you  to  put  so  much  work  and  time  on 
them,  is  very  grateful.  They  show  how  much  your  feeling 
was  in  harmony  with  the  humor  of  the  stories.  The  photo- 
graph is  excellent — thank  you.  Frank  has  taken  possession 
of  it  and  has  set  it  up  on  his  study  mantelpiece,  where  he 
says  it  shall  stay  until  you  come  to  the  study. 

We  both  send  our  love  and  wishes  for  a  comfortable 
journey  and  pleasant  winter,  and  we  hope  you  will  return 
completely  restored  and  well  and  strong. 
Yours  affectionately, 

MARIAN  E.  STOCKTON. 


The  dryad  on  the  oval  card  is  my  dryad.  How  did  you 
know  how  she  looked?  Don't  fail  us  in  the  Spring.  One 
reason  for  setting  up  this  home  was  that  you  and  yours 
might  come  to  us. 

With  best  wishes, 

F.  R.  S. 
THE  ALBERT 

Feb.  21,  '87. 

DEAR  Miss  WHEELER, — I  think  I  see!  You  are  going 
away  for  two  or  three  weeks  so  that  my  hair  can  grow  by 
the  time  you  come  back.  If  I  had  known  you  would  do  that 
the  hair  would  never  have  been  cut. 

But  cut  short  or  hanging  long — in  three  weeks,  or  any 
time,  I  shall  always  be  ready  when  you  give  the  word. 

Mrs.  Stockton  &  I  were  very  sorry  we  could  not  be  with 
you  and  your  mother  Sunday  afternoon,  but  we  had  a  steady 

1 A  cooy  of  Rudder  Grange,  illustrated  by  Mrs.  Keith. 
21  321 


YESTERDAYS 

line  of  callers — some  from  out  of  town — from  three  until 
six  o'clock.    Hoping  you  will  come  back  strong  and  well,  I  am 
Your  sincere  sitter, 

FRANK  R.  STOCKTON. 

The  last  work  which  I  had  to  do  as  one  with 
Onteorians  was  the  founding  of  the  Library.  In 
fact,  at  the  time  I  had  begun  to  drink  of  the  cup 
of  bitterness  which  comes  to  everybody  in  associ- 
ated work,  in  finding  that  one  can  no  longer  hold 
to  one's  share  of  it  because  individual  interest  will 
always  run  counter  to  associated  wants.  Even 
that  wonderful  community  of  Brook  Farm,  the 
most  unselfish  effort  in  modern  history  toward  the 
realization  of  an  ideal  of  life  and  where  the  most 
unworldly  and  philosophic  and  idealistic  of  minds 
were  brought  together,  failed  because  individuality 
was  too  strong  for  the  bonds  of  brotherhood  and 
community.  In  our  little  community  the  initial 
idea  was  soon  dissipated  by  subjection  to  the  fire 
of  commercial  methods,  and  the  distinctly  per- 
sonal element  remains  only  in  the  memory  and 
hearts  of  individuals ;  but  for  these,  it  will  forever 
gild  the  mountain-tops  of  beautiful  Onteora. 

So  ended  the  phase  perhaps  the  most  ardent  of 
my  life,  since  it  came  when  the  desires  of  the  normal 
human  being  for  appropriation  and  perpetuation 
were  at  their  strongest,  and  when  the  creative  ele- 
ment, which  is  our  inalienable  heritage  from  the 
great  Creator  of  all,  was  a  dominant  instinct. 

It  is  the  leaves  of  the  extended  life  of  Onteora 
322 


ONTEORA 

which  I  am  now  turning.  The  days  of  the  idyllic 
life  of  the  mountain,  when  we  lived  in  the  very 
arms  and  lingered  like  favored  children  in  the 
lap  of  nature,  made  its  first  page;  and  the  second 
was  of  the  after-days  when  numerous  kindly 
children  of  the  world  succeeded  in  welding  to- 
gether the  wonderful  magic  of  God's  upper  air 
with  the  luxuries  belonging  to  life  as  lived  on 
lower  levels.  In  the  beginning  of  this  second 
phase  Onteora  had  the  double  charm  of  a  place 
where  one  could  consort  with  the  mountains  and 
yet  hold  to  the  contrivances  of  softer  living,  to 
lie  upon  the  feather  bed  of  extremest  civilization 
after  a  flight  in  air  so  strenuous  as  to  demand 
strength  for  its  breathing.  We  all  liked  to  make 
this  little  flight  into  our  natural  element,  the  air 
breathed  by  the  primitive  human  beings ;  and  be- 
cause it  was  possible  at  Onteora  people  came, 
and  brought  their  down  cushions  with  them.  At 
first,  people  to  whom  air  flights  were  natural  pre- 
dominated, but  then  came  others  not  strong 
enough  for  aerial  exercise,  who,  figuratively  speak- 
ing, lay  long  in  bed  and  shortened  the  vigorous 
days  and  holy  nights  to  suit  their  artificial  con- 
stitutions. The  strong  ones  were  the  delight — 
as  they  always  are — of  those  whose  flights  were 
shorter  and  more  limited;  but  the  fact  remained, 
and  remains,  that  Onteora  was  and  is  a  place  where 
one  can  fly  high  or  low  according  to  individual 
capacity. 

323 


XI 

MARK  TWAIN 

TT  was  during  one  of  our  happy  visits  at  "the 
*  Sages'"  (Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dean  Sage),  when  they 
still  occupied  a  liberal  block  of  Brooklyn  ground, 
that  we  first  met  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Clemens  and  en- 
tered the  door  of  a  long  and  enjoyable  friendship. 
When  we  came  to  know  them  in  their  own  home 
it  was  not  alone  the  interest  and  mental  excite- 
ment of  a  near  view  of  so  rare  a  personality  as 
that  of  Mark  Twain,  but  the  enjoying  one  of 
the  most  perfect  pictures  of  happy  and  successful 
family  life  I  have  ever  known.  The  father  and 
mother  were  in  beautiful  accord,  all  of  Mr. 
Clemens 's  eccentricities  and  peculiarities  being  as 
delightful  to  his  wife  as  to  the  world;  while  to 
Mr.  Clemens  the  one  perfect  woman  in  existence 
was  his  wife,  and  I  think  he  wondered  every 
moment  of  his  life  how  he  came  to  be  so  fortunate 
as  to  be  her  husband.  The  three  children  were 
not,  at  that  time,  old  enough  to  assert  themselves 
as  different  personalities.  They  were  like  tree 
branches — individual  enough  to  add  to  the  beauty 
324 


MARK   TWAIN 

of  the  parent  stock,  but  not  so  pronounced  as  to 
have  their  horizontal  tendencies  count  as  diver- 
gencies. 

Mr.  Clemens  was  already  famous ;  his  inimitable 
Western  stories — of  which  The  Jumping  Frog  was 
perhaps  the  straw  which  tickled  the  mind  of  the 
public  most  effectively — followed  by  his  Innocents 
Abroad,  had  made  an  epoch  in  modern  literature. 

It  was  in  the  winter  of  1890  that  we  went  to 
visit  them  in  Hartford,  as  Dora  was  to  do  a  por- 
trait of  Mr.  Clemens,  as  one  of  a  series  of  portraits 
of  literary  men  and  women  of  England  and 
America. 

Their  house  was  very  charming,  one  of  a  cluster 
in  a  little  parklike  border  of  Hartford.  It  had 
been  but  recently  built,  and,  having  all  of  what 
we  call  "modern  conveniences,"  drew  from  Mr. 
Clemens  the  characteristic  remark,  "When  it 
was  done  I  had  three  hundred  dollars  in  the 
bank  which  the  plumber  didn't  know  anything 
about." 

Across  the  lawn  was  the  home  of  Charles  Dud- 
ley Warner;  down  the  street  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe  was  living  with  her  daughter;  and  near  at 
hand  was  the  delightful  friend  of  all  these  clever 
people,  "Joe  Twichell,"  as  he  was  called  by  them, 
the  Rev.  Joseph  Twichell,  as  he  was  known  to 
others.  He  was  an  ideal  of  manliness  and  good- 
ness, an  appreciative  and  clever  man  who  would 
have  been  remarkable  anywhere,  and  one  of  the 
325 


YESTERDAYS 

most  effective  story-tellers  of  this  brilliant  story- 
telling coterie. 

Of  the  three  children  in  the  Clemens  family — 
girls  of  eight,  ten,  and  twelve — "Little  Jean,"  as 
she  was  always  tenderly  called,  was  the  youngest 
and  her  father's  darling;  Susy  had  both  beauty 
and  talent;  and  Clara  was  a  pretty  girl  with  re- 
markable musical  ability. 

Mrs.  Clemens  was  at  that  time,  and  I  think 
always,  in  somewhat  delicate  health;  indeed, 
physically  speaking,  the  word  "delicate"  is  rather 
descriptive  of  her;  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  do 
justice  to  her  rare  and  wonderful  charm.  In  one 
of  Mr.  Howells's  chapters  in  Harper's  upon  "Mark 
Twain  As  I  Knew  Him,"  this  beautiful  endowment 
was  put  into  perfect  and  appropriate  words.  In- 
deed, in  reading  it,  I  was  conscious  of  a  poignant 
wish  that  Mr.  Clemens,  who  adored  his  wife  and 
was  sensitively  conscious  of  the  rarity  and  peculi- 
arity of  her  quality,  could  know  of  this  perfect 
tribute. 

It  was  a  part  of  his  humor  to  emphasize  the 
contrast  between  this  peculiarly  beautiful  and 
spiritual  organization  and  the  outward  aspect  of 
his  own.  Inwardly,  I  believe  there  was  a  mascu- 
line counterpart  which  answered  perfectly  to  the 
spirit  of  which  she  was  the  embodiment. 

As  I  have  said,  "Little  Jean"  was  the  darling 
of  her  father's  heart.  One  morning  at  breakfast 
I  noticed  that  she  was  not  at  the  table,  and,  asking 
326 


Susy  Clara  Jean 

MRS.    CLEMENS   AND   THE   CHILDREN,    HARTFORD,    CONNECTICUT,    1884 


MARK   TWAIN 

about  her,  was  told  that  she  was  suffering  from 
an  earache.  Up  jumped  her  father  and  vanished 
up  the  stairs.  It  was  some  time  before  he  re- 
turned, and  when  he  sat  down  at  the  table  he 
told  in  a  half-broken  voice  of  his  hearing  Jean 
upbraiding  God  for  not  paying  more  attention  to 
her. 

"O  God!"  she  said,  "I  asked  you  to  stop  my 
earache,  and  you  didn't,  and  I  asked  you  to  get 
me  a  goat,  and  you  didn't,  and  I  don't  believe 
you  care  anything  about  me  any  more." 

Her  father  had  gone  in  and  comforted  the  child 
as  best  he  could,  and  finished  telling  us  of  it  by 
saying,  "Livy,  if  there  is  a  goat  in  Hartford  that 
prayer  is  going  to  be  answered." 

There  was  a  suggestion  from  the  gentle  "Livy" 
that  Jean  would  receive  a  false  impression  from 
this  vicarious  proceeding,  but  Mr.  Clemens  in- 
sisted that  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter ; 
if  Jean  prayed  for  a  goat  she  wanted  it,  and  if  she 
wanted  it — especially  when  she  was  suffering — 
she  must  have  it,  and  in  a  day  or  two  the  goat 
was  forthcoming. 

Susy  and  Clara  were  their  father's  constant 
companions  in  his  afternoon  walks,  and,  in  fact, 
the  three  children,  the  father,  and  the  dog  had 
beautiful  outings  together,  no  matter  what  was 
the  weather. 

Mr.  Clemens  himself  was  passionately  fond  of 
music  and  had  a  very  sympathetic  voice.  To 
327 


YESTERDAYS 

hear  him  drop  into  a  seat  at  the  piano,  and  with 
his  own  accompaniment  roll  melodiously  forth 
some  Moody  and  Sankey  hymn  or  a  darky 
melody,  such  as  "Swing  low,  sweet  chariot,"  in 
his  many-chorded  voice  was  a  thing  never  to  be 
forgotten. 

Rhythmic  literature  seemed  to  have  an  equal 
charm  for  him.  He  was  devoted  to  Browning, 
and  read  his  poetry,  or  indeed  any  poetry  which 
he  felt,  in  a  way  which  raised  the  standard  of 
reading  or  recitation  immeasurably. 

During  the  mornings  when  he  was  sitting  for 
his  portrait  in  the  large  third-floor  study  and 
library,  he  read  and  talked  intermittently,  with 
his  thumb  between  the  pages  he  loved.  He  was 
the  star  reader  of  the  group  of  friends  who  met  so 
constantly  in  one  another's  houses,  and  the  mo- 
ment he  began,  the  drawly,  peculiar,  amusing 
voice  with  which  we  were  so  familiar  became  the 
very  voice  of  the  words  he  read.  These  friends 
had  evidently  fallen  into  the  habit  of  depending 
upon  one  another  for  interest  and  amusement  dur- 
ing some  portion  of  every  day,  and  more  especially 
at  night  when  serious  occupations  of  whatever 
nature  were  over.  Mr.  Clemens  would  take  his 
whole  family,  children,  guests,  and  even  the  dog, 
"over  to  Warner's."  Others  would  drop  in,  and 
then  came  delightful  talk,  stories,  and  music. 

One  evening,  when  but  few  of  this  coterie  of 
friends  were  gathered  at  "the  Warners',"  Mr. 
328 


MARK   TWAIN 

Warner  succeeded  in  getting  Mr.  Clemens  to  tell 
the  story  of  his  announcement  to  Mrs.  Clemens's 
father  of  their  engagement.  When  he  had  settled 
himself  to  his  liking,  and  filled  and  lit  his  beloved 
pipe,  he  preluded  his  story  by  telling  of  his  peri- 
odical visits  to  the  Rochester  house  of  the  Lang- 
dons,  and  proceeded  to  explain  that  at  each  visit 
he  proposed  himself  to  her  as  an  anxious  but  un- 
desirable suitor.  On  each  occasion  he  was  gently 
declined,  whereupon  he  would  say: 

"I  didn't  suppose  you  would  have  me.  I 
wouldn't  if  I  were  you!  I  don't  believe  I  should 
respect  you  as  I  do  if  I  thought  you  would  ever 
marry  me!" 

But  one  day  she  did  accept  him.  As  he  told 
this  part  of  the  story  the  sweet  humility  and  sur- 
prise of  the  man  seemed  to  envelop  him  like  a 
garment.  It  was  as  if  it  was  always  a  new  astonish- 
ment that  his  dream  of  this  priceless  creature  as 
his  wife  could  ever  be  realized. 

This  was  the  inner  man,  but  the  announcement 
of  the  engagement  to  her  father  was  Mark  Twain, 
the  inimitable,  the  one  and  only  man  of  his  kind. 
His  story  proceeded.  He  found  the  Judge  in  his 
office,  plainly  impatient  of  this  unexpected  visit. 
After  some  uncomfortable  delay  he  burst  out: 

"Say,  Judge,  have  you  noticed  anything  in 
particular  between  Livy  and  me  lately?" 

"No,  sir!  certainly  not,"  returned  the  Judge, 
somewhat  flustered. 

329 


YESTERDAYS 

"Well — look  sharp — and  you  will,"  drawled 
Mark. 

This  was  evidently  a  favorite  story  with  the 
friends,  and  was  really  a  dramatic  performance. 
His  impersonation  of  himself  was  delicious.  Mrs. 
Warner  told  me,  however,  that  it  was  never  asked 
for  when  Mrs.  Clemens  was  present. 

I  think  Mr.  Clemens  enjoyed  getting  off  his 
peculiarly  good  things  quite  as  much  in  his  family 
as  in  the  outside  world.  I  remember  one  after- 
noon, when  we  were  all  gathered  in  the  sitting- 
room,  he  proposed  to  give  me  one  of  his  books, 
asking  which  I  would  rather  have.  I  said,  "Oh, 
any  one,"  but  Mrs.  Clemens  chose  for  me  The 
Prince  and  the  Pauper,  which  was  evidently  more 
to  her  mind  than  some  other  of  his  books.  Mr. 
Clemens  brought  it  from  the  bookcase,  and  I 
asked  him  to  write  some  sort  of  an  inscription  so 
that  it  might  go  in  my  autograph  collection.  He 
took  it  to  a  writing-desk  in  a  bay  window,  and 
in  the  course  of  our  chatting  it  occurred  to  Mrs. 
Clemens  that  he  had  taken  a  long  time  in  which 
to  write  a  sentence  or  a  name. 

"Why,  Samuel,"  said  she,  "aren't  you  through 
with  that?  You  must  be  writing  a  chapter." 

"No,"  drawled  Mr.  Clemens,  "but  it  doesn't  go. 
It  doesn't  sound  just  right.  I  will  read  it  and 
perhaps  you  can  see  what  is  the  matter."  So  he 
began : 

"To  Mrs.  Wheeler,  with  as  much  affection  as 
33° 


MARK    TWAIN 

is  proper  between  two  people  whose  relicts  are  yet 
alive." 

Of  course  we  looked  at  each  other  with  a  burst 
of  laughter  as  the  last  sentence  was  read. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  it?"  said  Mr.  Clem- 
ens, innocently.  "Somehow  it  doesn't  sound 
right." 

The  friends,  Mr.  Clemens,  Mr.  Warner,  and 
Mr.  Twichell,  were  warmly  conscious  of  Mrs. 
Stowe's  vicinity,  a  consciousness  mixed  with  rev- 
erence for  a  woman  who  by  some  mystery  of  soul 
had  touched  a  chord  which  had  vibrated  through 
the  world.  They  were  all  anxious  that  Dora 
should  make  a  portrait  of  her,  and  Mr.  Clemens 
proposed  it. 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Stowe.  "Why  should  I  sit 
for  a  portrait?  You  know  I  do  not  like  to  meet 
strangers — new,  outside  people." 

"But,"  urged  Mr.  Clemens,  "this  girl  is  one 
of  the  inside  people.  You  will  like  her.  She  is 
just  one  of  us  and  we  all  want  her  to  paint  you." 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Stowe,  "I  will  not  be  painted, 
but  if  you  like  you  may  bring  her  to  see  me." 

When  Mr.  Clemens  returned  we  were  all  eager 
to  know  the  result  of  his  proposal. 

"No,  Dora,"  said  he,  "she  will  not  sit  for 
you,  but  I  am  going  to  take  you  around  to- 
morrow morning  to  see  her.  You  will  lose  your 
painting-hours,  but  I  guess  it  will  be  worth 
while." 


YESTERDAYS 

The  next  morning,  when  they  "dropped  in," 
as  if  for  a  casual  morning  call,  they  found  the 
frail  old  lady  waiting  for  them;  then,  after  a 
greeting,  Mr.  Clemens  went  out  "to  see  the  dogs," 
and  left  the  two  women  alone,  looking  at  each 
other,  the  one  at  the  far  end  of  life,  and  the  other 
at  the  beginning.  It  was  a  long  way,  but  the 
glances  met. 

"Are  you  the  girl  that  Samuel  wants  to  have 
paint  a  likeness  of  me?" 

"Yes,  Mrs.  Stowe,"  and  then  Dora,  as  told  me 
afterward:  "I  thought  I  should  cry;  she  went  on 
looking  so  quietly  and  steadily  at  me;  until  at 
last  she  said: 

"'Go  home,  dear,  and  get  your  things.  I  will 
wait  for  you."' 

In  describing  the  sitting  to  me  afterward,  Dora 
said  she  had  never  had  such  a  sense  of  disembodied 
soul,  because  Mrs.  Stowe  seemed  entirely  uncon- 
scious of  her  body,  as  much  so  as  if  it  no  longer 
existed.  She  talked  freely  and  sweetly  of  her 
mental  experiences,  both  former  and  present, 
and  while  the  artist  was  working  rapidly  on  a 
pastel  portrait  the  subject  seemed  to  be  entirely 
unaware  of  it,  talking  of  things  spiritual  as  if 
they  were  being  portrayed.  There  was  a  glimpse 
of  very  human  satisfaction,  however,  in  her  show- 
ing Dora  a  cabinet  of  published  translations  of 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  in  almost  every  written  lan- 
guage. 

332 


MARK    TWAIN 

At  the  end  of  two  mornings'  sittings  the  portrait 
was  finished.  It  was  a  picture  of  sweet  old  age 
in  a  delicate  human  envelope,  a  quiet  and  tranquil 
face,  but,  as  Mr.  Twichell  used  to  say,  "with 
something  going  on  inside." 

During  this  visit  Dora  painted  Mr.  Clemens 
and  Charles  Dudley  Warner,  and  made  a  pastel 
of  Mrs.  Stowe;  she  also  began  a  portrait  of  Mr. 
Twichell,  which  is  still  unfinished,  and  made  a 
large  sketch  of  Mrs.  Clemens  and  "Little  Jean." 
The  mutual  comments  of  the  subjects  were  always 
amusing. 

"Yes,  Dora,"  drawled  Mr.  Clemens,  looking 
at  Mr.  Warner's  picture,  "you've  got  that  old 
fish  eye  of  hisn." 

The  succeeding  summer  the  Clemenses  spent  at 
Onteora,  which  was  our  summer  home,  and  where 
they  had  frequently  visited  us.  There  is  a  very 
characteristic  portrait  of  him  in  colored  chalks 
on  the  plaster  of  the  dining-room  wall  made  during 
one  of  his  visits. 

The  luncheon  hour  he  always  spent  in  walking 
up  and  down  the  long  room  while  the  rest 
of  us  were  at  the  table.  As  he  generally  wore 
slippers  on  these  peregrinations,  the  family  dog 
used  to  follow  his  footsteps,  trying  to  get  a  bite 
at  the  loose  heels  of  them.  He  was  entirely  un- 
conscious of  this,  being  occupied  in  arguing 
some  position  or  telling  a  story  which  illus- 
trated it. 

333 


YESTERDAYS 

Nothing  could  have  been  kinder  than  his  atti- 
tude toward  the  small  community  at  Onteora. 
He  was  the  most  perfect  reader  I  have  ever  known. 
His  voice  was  peculiarly  musical  and  had  its  own 
attraction,  while  his  clear  rendering  of  meanings 
in  the  most  involved  versification  was  sometimes 
like  the  opening  of  a  closed  door. 

He  was  fond  of  reading  aloud,  and  seemed  to 
enjoy  the  lines  all  the  more  when  others  were 
listening.  During  the  summer,  every  morning 
at  eleven  o'clock,  he  went  into  one  of  the  neighbor- 
ing cottages  to  read  to  a  dear  old  friend  who  was 
apparently  losing  her  eyesight,  and  gradually  it 
became  the  custom  for  different  people  to  drop 
in  and  spend  the  hour,  either  sitting  on  the  door- 
step or  anywhere  within  reach  of  his  voice.  I 
have  never  been  certain  whether  his  conversational 
drawl  was  used  from  habit  or  intent,  but,  how- 
ever it  was,  it  made  his  conversation  different 
from  that  of  any  other  man. 

In  the  evenings  when  we  were  gathered  in  the 
Inn  parlor  together,  once  or  twice  the  two  older 
girls  and  their  father  gave  a  dramatic  perform- 
ance which  was  in  every  way  remarkable,  since 
the  plays  were  never  written  out,  but  were  com- 
posed on  the  spot,  the  story  having  been  settled 
between  the  three  before  beginning.  When  they 
had  decided  upon  plot  and  progress,  there  was 
never  any  hesitation  about  the  dialogue.  It  went 
off  as  glibly  as  if  it  had  been  written  and  studied 
334 


MARK    TWAIN 

for  months,  and  had  a  certain  freshness  and  nat- 
uralness about  it  which  it  never  could  have  had 
if  it  had  been  a  written  composition. 

It  was  long  after  this  that  Mr.  Clemens's  re- 
verse of  fortune  occurred,  and  we  were  at  Seattle 
on  Puget  Sound  when  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Clemens  and 
Clara  arrived  at  the  beginning  of  their  trip  around 
the  world,  which  was  intended  to  and  did  re- 
instate the  family  fortunes.  Not  only  that,  but 
Mr.  Clemens  was  enabled  to  repay  the  losses 
which  had  been  incurred  in  the  failure  of  the 
Webster  Publishing  Company.  It  was  said  that 
every  obligation  to  authors  was  made  good,  and  in 
one  or  two  cases  of  which  I  personally  knew  that 
was  certainly  the  case.  We  had  arranged  to  go 
to  Seattle  with  them,  but,  owing  to  some  compli- 
cations, we  could  not  leave  New  York  until  later. 
Still,  we  had  a  few  days  together  in  that  far  city, 
and  one  evening  we  sat  with  Mrs.  Clemens  in  a 
stage  box  to  hear  Mr.  Clemens  speak.  It  was  not 
exactly  a  reading,  but  a  repetition  from  some  of 
his  own  books,  interpolated  constantly  with  per- 
sonal thought  or  story  as  he  proceeded.  It  was  a 
performance  which  delighted  his  audience,  and 
was  repeated  with  the  same  effect  in  every  English- 
speaking  country  in  the  world.  We  bade  them 
good-by  there  as  they  sailed  away  on  that  long, 
eventful  journey. 

Their  return  from  England  to  New  York  was 
hastened  by  the  news  of  the  severe  illness  of 
335 


YESTERDAYS 

Susy,  who  had  remained  at  home  to  study  during 
her  father's  and  mother's  absence.  It  was  a  sad 
home-coming.  The  child  died  two  days  before 
they  landed,  and  that  was  the  first  great  sorrow 
of  Mr.  Clemens's  life. 

After  that  they  gave  up  the  house  at  Hartford 
and  lived  in  New  York  when  they  were  not  abroad, 
where  they  very  often  went  for  Clara's  musical 
education  and  on  account  of  Mrs.  Clemens's 
continued  delicacy.  When  she  died  in  Italy  it 
seemed  as  if  Mr.  Clemens  could  never  again  ad- 
just himself  to  the  world — the  old  gladness  was 
gone  forever.  Yet  the  sympathy  and  love  of  the 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  people  who  were  per- 
sonally unknown  to  him  had  an  effect  to  which  he 
responded  by  making  a  heroic  effort  to  go  on 
witn  the  task  of  living. 

Then  came  the  tragic  death  of  "Little  Jean," 
after  which  he  seemed  to  consider  the  story  of 
his  life  ended;  and  it  was  not  long  before  he  went 
to  join  those  whom  God  had  apportioned  to 
him.  It  was  a  pathetic  close  of  the  story  of  a 
lovely  human  group.  Exquisite  in  themselves 
and  in  their  relation  to  one  another,  generous,  ap- 
preciative, and  love-giving  to  the  world — the 
verse  he  wrote  for  the  headstone  on  his  wife's 
grave  seems  to  me  the  very  voice  of  his  heart, 
as  he  waited  alone  with  the  mystery  of  death 
between  him  and  the  days  of  his  long,  bright 
life. 

336 


MARK  TWAIN   AT   FIFTY 


MARK    TWAIN 

Warm  summer  sun,  shine  kindly  here; 
Warm  summer  wind,  blow  softly  here; 
Green  sod  above,  lie  light,  lie  light; 
Good  night,  dear  heart,  good  night,  good  night. 

The  following  letters  from  my  collection  are 
full  of  the  inimitable  Mark  Twain  flavor : 

QUARRY  FARM, 
NEAR  ELMIRA,  Sunday. 

DEAR  MRS.  WHEELER, — It  was  the  perfection  of  a  visit: 
just  enough  rain,  just  enough  sunshine;  just  enough  people, 
&  just  the  right  kind;  just  enough  exercise,  just  enough  lazy- 
ing  around;  just  enough  of  everything  desirable,  &  no  lack 
of  anything  usual  to  the  details  of  a  lark  away  from  home, 
except  Heimweh  &  the  other  kinds  of  blues.  If  any  should  ask 
me  if  we  had  a  good  time  there,  I  should  answer  that  it  was 
just  a  model  case  of  "Oh  hellyesl"  I  wish  we  could  have  seen 
more  of  Mr.  Thurber,  then  the  thing  would  have  been  complete. 

I  would  like  to  ask  Mr.  Dun.  Wheeler  to  inquire  of  our 
driver  if  Mrs.  Sage  paid  him  anything — so  that  I  can  send 
&  order  her  funeral  if  she  did.  He  charged  me  only  $4.  I 
was  in  a  hurry  &  did  not  notice,  at  the  time,  how  inadequate 
the  figure  was,  considering  the  service  performed;  but  it  has 
bothered  Mrs.  Clemens  &  me  a  good  deal  since;  for  either 
the  driver  swindled  himself  or  Mrs.  Sage  has  played  one  of 
her  underhand  games  on  us,  after  all  the  trouble  we  took  to 
try  to  get  even  on  that  slippery  family.  If  the  driver  swindled 
himself,  I  wish  to  rectify  it;  if  Mrs.  Sage  is  the  culprit,  let 
me  know,  &  leave  the  funeral  to  me.  She  had  a  sleek  air  of 
foxy  piety  about  her  when  we  parted  at  Catskills  which,  en- 
tirely misled  me,  because  I  supposed  she  was  merely  putting  up 
some  scheme  against  the  railroad.  It  was  a  rare  time  to  catch 
her  portrait  for  the  wall — just  transfigured  with  successful  sin. 

It  was  a  good  time  we  had  there;  I  shall  always  remember 
it,  &  also  you  &  all  the  people,  gratefully. 
Sincerely  yours, 

S.  L.  CLEMENS. 
22  337 


YESTERDAYS 

HARTFORD,  Feb.  15,  1887. 

DEAR  Miss  DORA, — Oh,  geewhillikins!  I  knew  I  should 
get  your  dates  all  mixed  up,  and  make  a  report  to  Mrs. 
Clemens  that  hardly  the  Deity  could  understand.  It  is 
what  happened.  Since  then  I  have  several  times  been  re- 
quired to  repeat  my  report  and  attest  it,  and  of  course  this 
is  the  fatalest  thing  of  all,  because  repetition  without  fresh 
scenery,  new  costumes  and  entirely  new  cast  of  characters 
gotten  up  especially  for  this  occasion  and  far  eclipsing  in 
sublimity  of  detail  and  magnificence  of  general  effect  all 
previous  achievements  of  this  management,  is  not  one  of  my 
gifts.  And  so  the  final  result  is,  that  I  have  named  and 
sworn  to  every  date  I  could  think  of  for  your  advent  here, 
until  by  George  I  am  just  plumb  out  of  dates — bankrupt — 
and  I  want  you  to  send  me  a  new  lot  right  away.  Don't  you 
delay  a  minute,  for  Mrs.  Clemens's  mind  is  tottering,  on 
account  of  her  stack  of  dates  being  so  top  heavy,  and  she 
has  lost  some  of  her  confidence  in  me,  and  doubtless  trouble 
brewing  for  me,  as  sure  as  you  are  born.  Name  the  day — 
rush! 

Yours  sincerely, 

S.  L.  CLEMENS. 


HARTFORD,  October  jj,  1890. 

MY  DEAR  MRS.  WHEELER, — It  is  a  lovely  offer,  a  seduc- 
tive and  splendid  offer,  and  it  costs  us  many  a  pang  to  have 
to  decline  it;  for  it  is  the  darlingest  society  up  there  that 
was  ever  gathered,  and  this  day  it  seems  odd  and  strange  and 
uninendurable  that  it  has  disappeared  out  of  our  daily  life 
and  left  this  great  big  dumb  vacancy  behind,  for  all  sign  of 
what  used  to  be  there.  But  we've  got  to  let  our  children 
clamor  as  they  may  for  a  return  to  these  happy  hunting 
grounds.  We  must  spend  next  year  in  Europe;  and  we  are 
unpractical  people  who  shudder  at  the  idea  of  looking  fur- 
ther ahead  than  a  year  at  a  time. 

I'll  send  the  plan  back  to-morrow,  but  bless  you  that's 
no  protection — Mrs.  Clemens  could  draw  it  and  write  in  the 
details  from  memory  anytime  these  next  ten  years. 
338 


MARK   TWAIN 

We  all  thank  you  sincerely  for  your  and  Mr.  Thurber's  gen- 
erous offer  and  are  naturally  proud  to  be  wanted  so  after 
exposing  our  characters  all  that  time!  There  are  people  in 
heaven  who  could  not  stand  that  amount  of  inspection. 

This  is  to  you  and  to  Mr.  Thurber  too — I  don't  like  No 
well  enough  to  want  to  say  it  to  two  people. 
We  join  in  love  to  you  and  yours  and  I  am 
Sincerely  yours, 

S.  L.  CLEMENS. 

P.  S. — When  we  get  back  from  Europe  we  hope  we  may 
be  able  to  ask  you  for  another  proposition. 

Pardon  the  delay — we  have  been  away  so  much  and  have 
been  so  rushed. 


XII 

THE    COLUMBIAN   EXPOSITION 

TT  was  after  I  had  been  for  several  years  one 
*  of  "The  Associated  Artists,"  and  for  a  year 
or  two  at  the  head  of  one  of  its  important  depart- 
ments, that  I  received  the  appointment  of  Direc- 
tor of  the  Woman's  Building  of  the  Columbian 
Exposition.  As  this  included  the  charge  of  its 
decoration,  which  must  be  not  only  beautiful  in 
itself,  but  an  integral  part  of  a  scheme  which  was 
planned  by  its  designers  to  be  of  the  world's  best, 
both  past  and  present,  I  felt  that  the  responsibility 
outweighed  the  honor;  and  again  the  question 
was  referred  to  the  home  court. 

"Do  you  know  any  one  better  equipped  for  the 
position?"  my  husband  asked. 

"Not  as  a  whole,  but  there  may  be  some  one 
whom  I  do  not  know." 

"You  may  depend  upon  it  that  'some  one'  has 
been  considered  before  you  were  asked,"  said  he; 
and  that  seemed  so  simple  that  I  accepted  it  as 
a  decision,  and  the  whole  thing  was  made  easy 
for  me. 


THE    COLUMBIAN    EXPOSITION 

Almost  before  I  could  realize  it  I  found  myself 
in  a  small  new  hotel  on  the  border  of  the  Fair 
grounds,  which  was  entirely  occupied  by  the 
artists  who  had  in  hand  the  decoration  of  the 
enormous  building.  Some  of  them  were  men  from 
abroad  who  were  doing  the  various  foreign  build- 
ings, with  now  and  then  an  editor  or  newspaper- 
man, but  for  the  most  part  the  company  was 
made  up  of  painters  of  New  York  or  Chicago, 
most  of  whom  I  knew  personally  as  well  as  by 
reputation.  As  the  wives  of  some  were  with 
them,  I  found  myself  at  once  among  friends. 

There  were  a  scant  three  months  in  which  to 
finish  the  miracle  which  had  been  begun  in  Chi- 
cago, and  every  one  walked  about  with  greater 
things  in  his  mind  than  it  seemed  possible  to 
bring  so  speedily  into  existence. 

The  days  and  weeks  and  months  of  actual  ar- 
rangement of  the  interior  of  the  Woman's  Build- 
ing were  not  entirely  a  rosy  time,  even  with  the 
pleasant  companionship  of  my  friends  in  the  small 
hotel.  The  Board  of  Governors  who  sat  in  council 
in  their  offices  across  the  park  had  too  much  per- 
plexity and  too  many  problems  of  their  own  to 
willingly  admit  even  the  shadow  of  another. 
Everything  was  going  on  at  once,  and  it  was  so 
big  an  everything,  with  a  separate  consciousness 
in  every  little  part  that  composed  it,  that  the 
pressing  needs  of  the  Woman's  Building  could  not 
be  taken  seriously,  and  I  had  no  local  interest. 
34i 


YESTERDAYS 

To  disentangle  workmen  from  that  hurrying  crowd 
was  to  expect  and  perform  a  miracle. 

The  solutions  and  decisions  of  our  body  of 
women  commissioners,  important  and  authorita- 
tive as  they  seemed  when  we  sat  in  council,  were 
merely  thistledown  to  the  real  governors  who 
held  the  purse-strings  and  ran  the  machine.  And 
political  policy  came  in.  All  sorts  of  incompetent 
women  were  placed  upon  my  staff  as  helpers 
through  somebody  who  had  influence,  and  when 
it  was  almost  impossible  to  secure  the  regular 
payment  of  my  workers  I  was  weighed  down  with 
these  incompetents.  But  whenever  I  found  my- 
self absolutely  at  bay,  whenever  I  felt  myself  a 
baby  in  the  lap  of  hard  circumstance,  I  had  re- 
course either  to  Mrs.  Palmer  or  to  Mr.  Millet. 
It  was  like  being  taken  up  by  some  heavenly 
angel  to  be  carried  by  Mrs.  Palmer  across  the  long 
distance  to  the  main  offices  in  the  only  carriage 
allowed  and  unquestioned  in  the  park,  and  so 
brought  into  actual  touch  and  equal  place  with 
the  governing  powers!  Simply  to  state  require- 
ments instead  of  struggling  or  insisting,  and  then 
suddenly  to  find  that  there  were  no  difficulties! 
It  was  as  if  I  had  risen  above  them  into  the  clear 
blue  of  power  while  thunder-storms  were  going 
on  below. 

The  other  recourse  was  a  written  appeal  to 
Mr.  Millet,  the  appeal  of  a  friend  in  a  strait  asking 
friendly  help  which  did  not  often  fail.  All  the 
342 


THE    COLUMBIAN    EXPOSITION 

same,  I  hated  to  ask  it,  and  I  felt  that  woman's 
part  and  power  in  the  great  enterprise  should  not 
be  made  difficult  or  ineffectual  in  its  expression. 
Mr.  Millet  was  the  right  man  in  the  right  place 
as  head  of  the  executive  officers  of  the  enterprise, 
always  conscious  of  the  different  parts  which  com- 
posed it. 

Now  at  this  time,  as  I  go  back  to  the  days  of  the 
Columbian  Exhibition  and  remember  the  Wom- 
an's Building  as  finished  and  standing  in  its  own 
beauty  beside  the  great  lake,  I  can  see  how  small 
were  the  obstacles  compared  to  the  result. 

Mural  painting  was  a  new  art  in  America,  but 
the  painters  who  had  been  brought  together  in 
Chicago  knew  the  best  of  the  old  and  new  ex- 
amples in  Florence  and  Rome,  and  in  Paris  where 
Puvis  de  Chavannes  was  in  mid-career  of  his 
great  work;  and  although  it  was  an  unpractised 
art  with  all  of  them,  yet  it  was  but  doing  in  large 
what  they  were  quite  equal  to  in  small;  and  the 
great  opportunity  was  not  to  be  lost,  since  by  it 
the  earliest  form  of  pictorial  art  in  the  world  was 
to  come  once  more  into  being. 

It  was  a  great  delight  to  be  in  the  midst  of  it, 
to  hear  the  evening  discussions  of  principles  ap- 
plied to  their  daily  work  by  Millet  and  Blashfield 
and  Turner  and  Gari  Melchers,  and  to  make  morn- 
ing stops  on  my  way  to  the  Woman's  Building 
to  watch  the  progress  of  some  composition  from 
its  earliest  to  its  latest  stage. 
343 


YESTERDAYS 

The  first  out-of-door  decoration  to  be  finished 
was  accomplished  by  Gari  Melchers  and  Mr.  Mac- 
Ewen,  and  as  these  men  were  more  lately  returned 
from  their  study  abroad  than  the  rest,  its  course 
and  result  were  watched  with  interest.  It  was  a 
new  sensation  to  see  these  uplifted  paintings-in-air 
created  by  artists  instead  of  by  sign-painters. 

Last  summer  I  met  Mr.  Melchers  at  Doctor 
Stimson's  at  Shinnecock  Hills,  and  we  recalled 
together  some  of  the  pictures  which  peopled  the 
great  interiors  and  the  upper  walls  which  rose 
over  the  pillars  and  porticoes.  They  had  answered 
their  purpose  of  color  and  suggestion  and  we  were 
not  sad  over  their  destruction. 

Most  of  the  men  who  made  up  that  artistic 
group  have  since  become  famous,  and  city  halls 
and  halls  of  justice  and  churches  and  cathedrals 
all  over  the  land  bear  witness  to  their  ability. 
Millet  and  Blashfield  and  Turner  and  a  score  of 
others  who  were  making  their  first  essays  at  that 
time  in  mural  decoration  are  names  now  known, 
at  least  in  this  country,  wherever  decoration  exists. 

In  spite  of  all  difficulties,  my  work  of  preparation 
of  the  Woman's  Building  went  steadily  on,  con- 
stantly restrained  in  its  scope  by  the  knowledge 
that  our  safety  lay  in  not  doing  anything  un- 
worthy. There  was,  however,  one  opportunity 
for  artistic  effect  in  the  great  room  which  had 
been  assigned  to  New  York  State,  and  which  was 
to  be  furnished  and  used  as  a  library.  I  felt  that 
344 


THE    COLUMBIAN    EXPOSITION 

both  its  purpose  and  place  demanded  the  use  of 
every  appropriate  means  of  beauty.  This  was 
easy  because  the  New  York  State  Commissioners 
were  responsible  for  its  success  or  failure,  and  I 
was  given  absolute  freedom  in  its  treatment. 

After  seeing  the  nobility  of  the  room's  propor- 
tions, and  the  one  great  window  which  seemed  to 
take  in  all  the  blue  of  the  sky  and  the  expanse  of 
water  which  lay  under  it,  I  felt  that  it  would  be 
an  insult  to  this  dominant  color  to  introduce  any- 
thing in  this  sheltered  space  which  would  be  at 
war  with  it;  consequently  I  chose  modulations  of 
blue  and  green  for  the  color  treatment. 

After  my  scheme  for  walls  and  furniture  was 
completed  there  remained  two  great  spaces  to 
consider — first  the  ceiling,  an  expanse  of  white 
which  was  overpowering  in  emptiness,  and  then 
a  height  of  wall  which  needed  to  be  lessened  by 
plaster  decoration  of  some  sort  to  bring  it  within 
picture  reach  of  the  range  of  carved  bookcases 
which  surrounded  the  entire  room.  This  was 
sufficiently  easy  to  accomplish,  as,  given  the  de- 
sign, it  could  be  cast  and  molded  in  Chicago. 
I  decided  that  a  painted  ceiling  was  required  for 
the  overhead  space,  and  in  the  Woman's  Building 
it  should  be  a  woman's  work.  It  could  be  painted 
in  New  York  and  mounted  by  the  men  who  were 
coming  from  there  for  the  finish  of  the  room.  After 
considerable  correspondence  Mrs.  Keith  under- 
took to  carry  this  through,  with  the  help  of  some 
345 


YESTERDAYS 

of  her  fellow-painters  who  had  worked  with  her 
in  her  study  under  Mr.  Chase  and  afterward 
in  Paris.  The  sketch  was  sent  to  me  and,  after 
being  duly  criticized  and  approved,  the  great 
roll  of  canvas  was  shipped;  and,  coincidently,  I 
had  the  happiness  of  welcoming  the  dear  law- 
giver of  the  family  and  my  daughter  and  the 
inevitable  nurse  and  baby  to  the  little  hotel  where 
I  had  been  for  two  months  trying  to  be  happy 
without  them.  After  that  everything  was  de- 
lightful! no  more  worries,  friends  in  abundance 
at  the  hotel,  and  the  joy  of  congenial  work  shared 
by  able  hands.  The  ceiling  was  put  up,  with  a 
wide  deep  border  and  a  modeled  frieze  that 
brought  it  to  within  reasonable  distance  of  the 
paneled  bookcases.  The  bookcases  themselves 
surrounded  the  room,  filled  with  books,  a  great 
army  of  them  beginning  with  the  very  earliest 
utterances  of  women  in  print  and  following  down 
the  centuries  to  the  present.  Busts  of  notable 
women  by  notable  women  were  decoratively  used, 
and  the  great  window,  filled  with  leaded  glass, 
gave  a  softened  beauty  of  lake  and  sky.  Alto- 
gether I  was  satisfied.  I  felt  that  the  women  of  all 
America  would  not  be  sorry  to  be  women  in  the 
face  of  all  that  women  had  done  besides  living  and 
fulfilling  their  recognized  duties. 

After  the  preparation  of  the  building  was  com- 
pleted came  its  occupation  and  use  by  the  State 
Commissioners   of   the   United   States,    and   the 
346 


THE    COLUMBIAN    EXPOSITION 

reception  of  exhibits  from  the  women  of  the 
world. 

Every  state  and  territory  in  the  Union  had  se- 
lected its  most  cultivated  and  able  women  to 
represent  woman's  part  in  the  forward  movement 
of  art,  science,  literature,  ethics,  and  industries. 
The  activity,  the  rivalry,  and  harmony  of  these 
different  bodies  of  women  had  for  their  theater  the 
Woman's  Building,  and  its  great  auditorium  was 
the  stage  where  they  met  and  conferred  or  differed. 
The  immediate  question  was  the  proper  distribu- 
tion of  space.  The  relative  value  of  the  exhibits 
of  each  state  decided  the  amount  of  space  given 
for  exhibition,  and  this  consideration  extended 
to  every  country  in  the  world. 

Every  country  which  had  a  civilized  government 
had  been  made  not  only  to  recognize  the  im- 
portance of  women's  manufactures,  but  incited 
to  produce  them  in  a  world-exhibit  and  competi- 
tion in  the  Woman's  Building  at  Chicago.  The 
accomplishment  of  this  was  a  matter  for  constant 
wonder.  How  had  all  these  governments  been 
reached  and,  perhaps  for  the  first  time,  made  to 
recognize  the  woman  element  in  commercial  pro- 
duction ? 

The  days  I  spent  in  my  office  in  the  Woman's 
Building  were  constantly  interrupted  by  calls 
from  commissioners  from  states  or  countries  each 
demanding  special  privileges.  One  day  a  card 
was  brought  to  my  office  which  made  its  own  im- 
347 


YESTERDAYS 

portance  manifest  by  much  gilding  and  blazon- 
ing, and  I  was  told  that  the  Turkish  commissioner 
wished  to  see  me.  I  made  haste  to  wait  upon 
his  grandeur  in  the  great  exhibition  hall  where  I 
found  an  official  of  the  Exposition  waiting  to  in- 
troduce a  glittering  group  of  Orientals.  The 
Turkish  commissioner  himself,  tall,  portly,  and 
intensely  masculine  so  far  as  the  self-indulgent 
side  of  masculinity  was  concerned,  was  surrounded 
by  numerous  lesser  lights — interpreter,  secretary, 
physician,  and  the  various  other  human  attach- 
ments which  went  to  emphasize  the  importance  of 
a  Turkish  dignitary. 

The  matter  in  hand  was  the  inadequate  size 
of  the  floor  space  allotted  to  the  Turkish  exhibit. 
I  had  to  explain  through  the  interpreter  that  I 
had  not  the  power  to  extend  the  space  given  to 
any  country.  It  was  carefully  based  upon  the 
relative  amount  of  exports  of  purely  feminine 
manufacture  of  each  country,  and  not  upon  the 
amount  a  country  could  offer  for  this  particular 
exhibition.  All  this  was  carefully  repeated  to  the 
glittering  commissioner,  who  thereupon  continued 
his  argument  without  the  slightest  reference  to 
my  statement.  His  speech  set  forth  the  im- 
portance of  Turkish  women  in  art,  their  im- 
portance and  value  to  the  world  in  general,  and 
their  superior  claims  to  consideration  in  conse- 
quence. I  listened  to  all  this  with  great  interest, 
as  it  gave  me  an  entirely  new  view  of  Turkish 
348 


THE    COLUMBIAN    EXPOSITION 

women,  both  individually  and  as  a  part  of  the 
nation.  I  knew,  however,  that  the  exqtrisite  prod- 
ucts which  were  being  unpacked  in  the  section 
could  not  be  certified  as  absolutely  feminine,  and 
I  felt  strongly  in  sympathy  with  the  intention 
of  the  directors  that  the  Exposition  should  be  an 
exposition  and  not  a  mere  market-place  for  the 
world,  as  most  of  the  foreign  commissioners  were 
inclined  to  consider  it. 

Amid  the  little  wrangles  which  preceded  our 
final  arrangements  of  all  these  things  I  remember 
a  remarkably  pretty  little  Lady  Somebody,  one 
of  the  English  commission,  meeting  me  on  the 
platform  of  the  great  staircase  and,  after  a  hurried 
introduction,  attacking  me  with  an  amazing  flood 
of  abuse  about  the  want  of  space  allowed  to  the 
English  exhibit.  It  was  so  personal,  so  childish 
and  queer,  that  I  stood  aghast,  while  one  of  her 
party,  who  was  not  a  lady  and  yet  was  one,  tried 
deprecatingly  to  quiet  or  at  least  to  moderate  her. 

"Why,  why,  you  mustn't  talk  to  my  mother 
in  that  way!"  gasped  Dora;  and  as  I  turned  away, 
seeing  that  she  was  utterly  incapable  of  self- 
control,  I  thought  what  an  unfortunate  thing  it 
was  to  be  born  a  "lady"  and  uncommonly  pretty, 
and  never,  probably,  as  a  child,  having  been 
soundly  whipped  when  she  needed  it.  But  Turkish 
dignitaries  and  English  "ladies,"  fortunately,  did 
not  make  up  the  sum  of  daily  happenings. 

There  were  so  many  beautiful  things  and  so 
349 


YESTERDAYS 

many  beautiful  human  beings  to  look  at!  The 
tall  brown  men  from  Ceylon  who  exhibited  their 
consignments  and  gave  us  cups  of  delicious  tea, 
while  we  contemplated  their  golden-brown  com- 
plexions and  slightly  rippled  satiny  hair  with  its 
priceless  encirclement  of  shell  combs,  and  their 
long,  smooth,  white  dresses  crossed  diagonally  on 
the  breast  with  a  broad  blue  ribbon,  were  not 
the  only  desirable  people  to  look  at.  The  best 
from  everywhere,  from  all  the  world,  had  come  to 
Chicago,  and  was  it  not  like  Chicago  to  have 
gotten  up  and  done  this  astonishing  thing  in  this 
astonishing  way!  Brown  people  and  black  people 
and  red  people  swarmed  through  our  great  halls, 
until  those  who  were  white  looked  simply  faded- 
out  human  beings  beside  them.  Indeed,  I  came 
to  see  that  white  is  not  a  color  in  skin  any  more 
than  in  textiles,  and  if  it  had  not  quality,  it  had 
no  value  even  for  humanity.  I  saw  that  color  in 
skin  had  a  certain  advantage  in  strength  and 
warmth  as  a  means  of  beauty. 

Among  the  most  impressive  of  the  colored  races 
were  our  own  red  Indians,  whom  one  met  in  little 
companies  everywhere.  They  were  generally  in 
their  war-bonnets,  for  every  day  was  an  occasion ; 
and  these  silent,  well-bred  beings  walked  together 
up  and  down  the  streets,  or  sat  together  in  the 
assemblies,  with  an  air  of  individual  superiority, 
the  effect  being  very  much  the  same  as  that 
which  the  English  call  "royalty" — that  curious 


THE    COLUMBIAN    EXPOSITION 

use  of  a  quality  word  which  they  apply  individually 
to  all  members  of  a  certain  family. 

Now  that  we  were  so  nearly  through  with  the 
anxiety  of  getting  the  great  task  completed,  we 
were  ready  to  enjoy  every  individual  thing  which 
was  being  done;  to  wonder  and  shiver  at  the 
savagery  of  every  new  beast  which  Phinister 
Proctor  modeled  for  its  place  over  a  great  arch- 
way or  gate  of  entrance;  to  delight  in  every  new 
classic  figure  which  rested  in  beauty  on  the  quay 
of  the  Court  of  Honor,  looking  as  if  it  had  wan- 
dered out  of  the  past  and  mistaken  the  wonderful 
beauty  which  surrounded  it  for  the  Greece  or 
Rome  of  its  former  existence;  to  exclaim  and  re- 
joice at  the  gondolas  which  dipped  the  blue  water 
of  the  lagoons  or  the  painted  sails  of  some  lateen- 
rigged  boat  which  went  floating  up  and  down  the 
inland  waters.  The  world  had  suddenly  come  to 
us!  How  cheap  foreign  travel,  however  varied, 
seemed  beside  these  days  of  the  culmination  of 
the  Fair,  when  everything  that  was  of  interest 
in  the  whole  world  seemed  to  be  gathered  within 
eyescope  and  reach  of  hand — all  the  outlandish 
people,  and  all  the  beautiful  people,  and  all  the 
barbarous  things,  and  all  the  most  rare  and  beau- 
tiful things,  more  than  one  has  ever  read  or 
dreamed  or  imagined. 

We  had  beautiful  times  with  our  friends  at  the 
little  hotel.  Every  one  was  satisfied  with  the 
development  of  things,  and  we  were  all  interested 
351 


YESTERDAYS 

in  the  work  we  were  all  and  severally  doing.  I 
recall  one  memorable  night  when,  dinner  being 
over,  our  whole  company  sallied  out  into  the 
light  of  a  great  silvery  moon  shining  upon  the 
broad  white  roads  of  the  exhibition  grounds.  The 
gates  were  shut  and  the  army  of  working-people 
had  vanished.  We  suggested  to  ourselves  a  com- 
pany of  reawakened  souls  in  the  streets  of  some 
dim  old  dead  city.  Sara  Hallowell  was  almost 
the  genius  of  this  company  of  artists,  knowing 
Chicago  and  all  the  officials  and  ropes  of  the 
exhibition,  and  being  known  of  every  painter  and 
sculptor  as  the  kindest  and  most  discerning  direc- 
tor of  art  patronage.  Mrs.  Zorn  and  Mrs.  Mac- 
monnies  and  Mrs.  Blashfield  and  in  fact  every 
wife  of  every  painter — for  most  of  these  men  had 
added  the  good  of  life  to  the  good  of  art — were 
on  this  particular  night  inspired  by  the  beauty 
and  stillness  of  the  city  and  warmth  of  good- 
fellowship  and  the  intoxication  of  sympathetic 
occupation,  and  so  went  waving  down  the  broad 
white  ways  in  processional  dances,  gay  or  serious, 
according  to  the  characters  of  the  dancers.  The 
pictorial  effect  of  the  thing  has  been  hanging  in 
my  "halls  of  memory"  all  these  years,  since  the 
birth  and  death  of  "The  Dream  City." 

Many  evenings  our  artistic  household,  which 

was  as  yet  held  together  by  odds  and  ends  of 

unaccomplished  work,   went  in   a  body  to   the 

illuminated   Court   of   Honor    and   enjoyed   the 

352 


THE    COLUMBIAN    EXPOSITION 

witchery  of  its  wonderful  beauty.  I  thought  then, 
and  still  think,  that  if  that  alone  had  been  done 
in  marble  instead  of  "staff"  it  would  have  drawn 
all  generations  of  all  countries  to  a  veritable 
Mecca  of  beauty.  No  words  can  do  justice  to 
the  effect  of  that  wonderful  inclosure  of  living 
blue  lake  water,  bridged  at  its  entrance  by  the 
foundations  of  French's  gigantic  statue  whose  up- 
lifted arms  held  the  light  which  was  to  draw  the 
world.  The  lights  and  shadows  and  reflections 
on  the  moving  water  of  the  wonderful  cascades 
which  bounded  it,  the  lines  of  statues  on  the  broad 
quay  looking  at  their  own  broken  and  moving 
reflections,  the  dome  of  spray  from  Mr.  Mac- 
monnies's  fountain  lit  by  innumerable  glancing 
lights,  obscuring  the  further  limit,  was  something 
to  be  felt  and  to  become  a  mind-treasure  locked 
and  guarded  by  memory. 

After  the  opening  of  the  Exposition,  my  people 
returned  to  New  York,  and  I  went  to  spend  a 
week-end  with  a  friend  whose  house  stood  in  a 
part  of  the  original  grounds  of  the  Fair  and  the 
adjacent  University  of  Chicago,  the  ground  for 
the  latter  having,  in  fact,  been  given  to  the 
university  by  my  friend's  husband,  Mr.  J.  Young 
Scammon,  the  owner  of  the  Inter-Ocean,  and  one 
of  the  founders  of  Chicago  and  an  efficient  thought- 
builder  in  its  growth.  All  the  Fair  and  university 
grounds  had  been  only  a  part  of  the  out-of-town 
farm  where  the  family  spent  their  summers. 
23  353 


YESTERDAYS 

Mrs.  Scammon  had  been  one  of  my  child- 
hood's friends.  We  had  dressed  dolls  together 
on  the  steps  of  our  parents'  adjacent  houses,  and 
I  still  remember  that  my  part  in  making  the  dolls' 
dresses  was  the  hemming  of  the  sleeves,  because, 
being  the  younger,  my  little  finger  was  the  smallest 
of  the  four  little  fingers  belonging  to  us.  We  were 
still  " Maria"  and  "Candace"  to  each  other,  and 
in  fact  Mrs.  Scammon  and  her  sister,  Mrs.  Mah- 
lon  Ogden,  were  the  last  two  friends  who  called 
me  by  my  given  name. 

My  week-end  extended  itself  over  the  summer 
months.  It  was  only  across  a  nearly  unbuilt- 
upon  block,  and  down  a  lane  to  the  side  entrance 
of  the  Midway,  and  we  could  sit  on  the  piazza 
and  hear  the  music,  or  cross  over  and  enter  that 
place  of  wonder  where  all  nations  were  gathered 
together — from  the  Mohammedan  merchant  with 
his  rugs  and  brasses  to  the  savage  Africans  of 
savage  jungles,  or  the  stillest  and  most  bewildered 
Eskimos,  all  living  their  own  lives.  Or  we  could 
go  in  our  best  to  the  daily  religious  congress, 
and  hear  the  wisdom  of  the  wisest  from  all  lands. 

It  is  curious  to  note  the  broadening  of  religious 
thought  which  was  a  direct  result  of  these  con- 
gresses, the  sifting  of  time-honored  ideas,  and  the 
breaking  up  and  casting  to  the  winds  of  those 
whose  usefulness  or  necessity  were  manifestly 
outgrown.  I  think  the  religious  congresses  were 
more  impressive  to  me  than  any  other.  I  myself 
354 


THE    COLUMBIAN    EXPOSITION 

had  been  so  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  Puritan 
traditions  of  my  early  life,  seeing  and  believing 
only  one  faith,  one  right,  one  Church,  that  actual 
communication  with  so  many  widely  differing  re- 
ligious forms  of  belief,  every  one  accepted  by  a 
large  part  of  the  world — seeing  the  Greek  bishops, 
and  the  English  and  American  bishops,  and  Mo- 
hammedans and  Buddhists  walking  and  conversing 
together  along  the  corridor  of  one  of  the  great 
buildings — was  like  going  up  on  a  mountain-top. 
I  saw  that  religion,  the  aspiration  of  the  soul, 
was  a  common  instead  of  a  restricted  heritage. 
I  suppose  my  experience  was  that  of  thousands 
who  were  brought  under  the  influence  of  the 
widening  of  thought  of  the  world  congresses! 

Julia  Ward  Howe,  already  somewhat  advanced 
in  years,  had  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Chicago  and 
was  a  notable  part  of  these  congresses,  although  she 
seldom  spoke.  When  she  did,  people  listened,  for 
she  had  the  rare  distinction  of  not  saying  a  word 
which  was  not  worth  while.  What  an  honored 
life  she  had  led,  and  to  what  an  honored  age  she 
had  come!  One  was  always  very  conscious  of  her 
value.  I  have  met  many  people  who  had  achieved 
greatness  which  it  was  difficult  to  realize  in  their 
presence;  in  fact,  it  seems  to  me  that  with  the 
majority  of  distinguished  people  I  have  known 
there  was  a  want  of  personal  bigness.  Of  course 
they  must  have  had  great  moments,  times  when 
they  had  climbed  the  mental  or  spiritual  stairs 
355 


YESTERDAYS 

which  led  upward,  but  the  ordinary  flat  of  great 
lives  is  quite  on  our  own  plane.  In  meeting  them 
our  hearts  do  not  always  rise  to  the  higher  levels. 
But  somehow  one  always  felt  in  Mrs.  Howe  a 
sense  of  her  uncommonness.  She  could  not  give 
you  a  cup  of  tea  in  her  own  house  in  Boston,  on 
one  of  her  friendly  afternoons,  without  in  a  cer- 
tain sense  handing  it  down  to  you. 

There  was  another  woman  whom  it  was  a  privilege 
to  meet  during  the  congresses,  the  dear,  persistent 
Susan  Anthony,  whose  whole  life  was  spent  in  the 
spirit  of  "seventy-six."  It  had  been  lived  with 
a  thought  of  justice,  an  abstract  sense  of  right 
which  so  seemed  to  permeate  her  life  that  she 
herself  became  justice  personified.  In  her  later 
years  and  with  belated  public  recognition,  it  was 
a  sense  of  her  justice  and  kindness  and  human 
love  that  called  out  an  answering  feeling  in  every 
one  with  whom  she  came  in  contact.  I  remember 
pacing  the  outside  corridor  of  the  Woman's  Build- 
ing with  her  one  afternoon  after  one  of  the  con- 
gress meetings,  when  I  was  so  taken  possession 
of  by  this  spirit  in  her  that  the  outside  and  inside 
crowds  seemed  all  to  be  a  part  of  one  brooding 
spirit  of  right  in  the  world  and  of  love  in  the  world. 

Life  in  the  closing  days  of  the  great  Fair  was  a 
constant  succession  of  sensations,  hardly,  indeed, 
a  succession,  for  it  was  filled  and  packed  with 
them.  t  The  dominant  thought  of  each  of  the 
strong  minds  which  had  been  brought  together 
356 


THE    COLUMBIAN    EXPOSITION 

from  near  and  far  seemed  to  rise  up  and  fill  the 
air,  so  that  whatever  was  going  on  below  all  the 
commonplace  hurry  and  scurry  was  like  dust  in 
the  highways,  while  real  life  went  on  above  in  the 
blue. 

Taken  in  all,  the  Chicago  Exposition  was  a 
curious  drama  of  the  activities  of  the  world.  It 
might  have  been  one  merely  of  the  commercial 
activities,  but  it  was  far  more  than  that.  The 
congresses  brought  together  into  one  focus  the 
religious  beliefs  and  practices  of  every  country, 
and  the  most  advanced  knowledge  in  all  the  vari- 
ous fields  of  science,  morality,  and  religion  was 
in  fact  a  focusing  of  the  immaterial  forces  of 
progress.  The  successful  bringing  together  of 
human  bodies  was  as  nothing  in  comparison  with 
the  marshaling  of  thought  forces,  and  the  main 
power  of  material  profit  which  had  made  the  whole 
great  drama  possible  sank  into  insignificance  in 
sight  of  what  it  had  evoked. 

I  could  almost  see  the  real  and  spiritual  at 
work  together  in  this  great  theater  of  prepara- 
tion, where  material  fingers  were  spinning  the 
inexhaustible  thoughts  of  the  mind  into  material 
which  could  be  made  a  part  of  life  itself. 


XIII 

ANDERS    ZORN 

TT  was  great  good  fortune  to  be  housed  in  the 
•*•  little  hotel  located  near  the  Fair  grounds  almost 
entirely  occupied  by  artists  who  were  busy  with 
the  mural  and  interior  decoration  of  the  great 
white  buildings  which  were  rising  day  by  day 
in  "The  Dream  City." 

There  were  a  few  foreign  painters  who  had  been 
chosen  to  represent  the  arts  and  manufactures  of 
their  respective  countries,  and  among  them  were 
Anders  Zorn,  the  great  Swedish  portrait-painter, 
and  his  wife. 

It  was  a  group  of  our  ablest  and  most  executive 
painters  and  sculptors,  as  well  as  those  of  other 
countries;  and  fortunately  for  us  all,  it  included 
Miss  Sara  Hallowell,  a  universal  solvent,  who 
brought  to  this  varied  circle  not  only  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  Chicago,  and  the  officials  and  rules 
of  the  Exposition,  but  was  known  of  every 
artist  at  home  and  abroad  as  the  kindest  and 
most  discerning  director  of  art  patronage,  as  well 
358 


ANDERS    ZORN 

as  one  whose  judgment  in  art  matters  was  as  un- 
questioned as  law. 

Of  course  the  group  became  very  intimate, 
there  being  so  much  in  common  in  our  interests 
and  occupations. 

We  had  beautiful  times  among  so  many  inter- 
esting people  in  the  little  new  hotel.  Every  one 
was  satisfied  with  the  development  of  events, 
and  interested  in  the  work  we  were  severally  do- 
ing, and  they  surely  were  a  delightful  company! 
Every  one  good  to  look  at  and  charming  of  utter- 
ance! 

The  home  folk-dances  of  Anders  Zorn  and  his 
wife  were  amiably  and  freely  given  and  were 
wonderfully  rhythmic  and  beautiful  to  see.  To 
know  this  one  of  the  greatest  of  living  painters 
in  every-day  moods  was  to  be  charmed  with  his 
perfect  simplicity  and  kindly  naturalness.  Among 
others,  one  utterance  of  his  especially  delighted  me. 
We  were  discussing  a  late  portrait  of  John  Sargent, 
and  some  one  said,  "Sargent  is  your  rival,  Zorn!" 

Zorn  seemed  to  muse  over  this  a  moment;  then 
he  answered,  in  his  slightly  hesitating  English: 

"Rivals?    Why,  we  call  them  comrades!'1 

When  the  Swedish  building  was  finished  Mr. 
Zorn  gave  us  a  Swedish  dinner  in  its  great  recep- 
tion-room, rich  with  Swedish  flags  and  draperies. 
I  remember  it  began  with  all  sorts  of  salt  and 
pickled  things — dried  fish  and  fish  eggs  and  tongues 
of  small  creatures  — •  spread  upon  a  side-table 
359 


YESTERDAYS 

where  everybody  helped  himself  and  tasted  the 
curious  and  alluring  things  before  sitting  down 
to  the  table. 

The  Zorns  made  Swedish  art  very  popular  in 
Chicago.  The  Swedish  galleries  in  the  Fine  Arts 
Building  were  crowded,  and  I  remember  Mr. 
Zbrn's  glee  at  the  two  or  three  important  sales 
on  the  very  first  days  of  opening ;  it  was  a  pleasure 
compounded  of  national  and  artistic  pride  in  the 
work  of  Swedish  painters.  Later  I  was  greatly 
interested  in  his  portrait  of  Mrs.  Palmer  ordered 
by  the  Woman's  National  Commission.  It  was 
to  be  painted  in  her  own  house  on  the  lake  shore, 
but  the  business  and  interests  of  the  Fair  were 
still  so  absorbing  as  to  cut  short  the  sittings  in 
lamentable  fashion,  and  Mr.  Zorn  was  occasion- 
ally left  gasping  at  the  new  sensation  of  finding 
his  work  second  to  anything  else  in  the  world. 

"When  I  painted  the  Princess  Frederica,"  said 
he,  "I  had  only  to  threaten  to  send  for  the  queen, 
and  she  would  sit  quite  still." 

"But  this  is  the  queen  herself,"  said  Mr.  Beck- 
with. 

"Ah!"  said  Zorn,  quaintly.  "But  she  should 
know  the  portrait  of  a  queen  is  of  importance." 

But  in  spite  of  interruptions  the  portrait  pro- 
gressed, and  when  it  was  finished  g  d  installed 
on  the  platform  of  the  assembly  jom  of  the 
Woman's  Building  it  was  cej?  p  ?an  imposing 
piece  of  work.  -n'"  *•> 

360 


ANDERS   ZORN 

Of  course,  the  women  commissioners  of  all  the 
states  were  there  to  see,  and  as  each  one  had  con- 
tributed something  of  the  three  thousand  dollars 
which  was  its  price,  each  felt  that  the  painter 
was  responsible  to  her  personally  for  what  she 
had  expected  in  the  picture. 

In  those  Exposition  days  Mrs.  Palmer  was 
easily  the  most  beautiful  grown-up  woman  I 
have  ever  seen.  No  picture  could  be  so  beau- 
tiful, because  no  one  of  her  moments  of  perfec- 
tion but  could  be  enhanced  by  some  changing 
shade  or  shadow  of  expression.  We  often  say 
"beautiful  as  a  picture,"  but  we  do  not  mean  by 
that  the  mere  likeness  which  the  painter  has  im- 
perfectly transferred  to  canvas;  we  are  thinking 
of  the  vision  which  he  saw  in  his  mind,  the  thing 
which  the  painter's  canvas  evokes  in  our  own 
minds.  In  children  one  often  sees  a  perfection 
of  line,  contour,  and  color  which  so  rarely  out- 
lives childhood  that  when  it  does,  no  wonder  the 
tradition  of  it  lives  from  century  to  century. 
Helen  of  Troy!  Cleopatra!  Ninon  d'Enclos!  I 
doubt  if  any  of  them  was  more  actually  beautiful 
than  that  morning  vision  which  came  in  a  well- 
appointed  carriage,  with  sleek,  well-groomed 
horses,  from  the  stone  house  on  the  lake  shore  of 
Chicago  to  he  Woman's  Building  of  the  Colum- 
bian Exposit.  ">,  and  sat  before  my  eyes  and  smiled 
and  thought  i  1ked  in  my  sight  for  the  space 

of  an  hour  or  mo.  ^.  It  was  one  of  the  compensa- 
361 


YESTERDAYS 

tions  of  a  day  which  was  often  full  of  anxious 
effort  and  worrying  experiences. 

I  remember  in  one  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  early  novels, 
called  The  Pearl  of  Orr's  Island,  a  story  of  a  little 
girl  who  had  been  left  to  grandparents  whose 
lives  were  otherwise  poor  and  plain,  but  "the 
varied  beauty  of  the  little  child  made  of  their 
home  a  veritable  Pitti  Palace."  And  so  my 
morning  conferences  in  the  office  of  the  manager 
of  the  Woman's  Building  were  in  one  respect  a 
true  Pitti  Palace. 

Mr.  Zorn  did  not  get  all  this  beauty  in  the  life- 
size,  full-length  portrait  ordered  by  the  women 
commissioners  of  the  great  Exposition  (partly,  I 
have  always  thought,  in  grateful  recognition  of 
the  fact  of  their  being  women  commissioners),  and 
it  was  not  and  could  not  be  the  ideal  which  a 
thousand  women  had  in  individual  mind;  but 
it  did  present  a  satisfying  semblance  of  living 
beauty  which  is  good  to  have  in  the  world. 

When  it  was  finally  finished  and  installed  on 
the  platform  of  the  assembly-room  in  the  Wom- 
an's Building,  it  was  not  received  simply  as  a 
beautiful  work  of  art,  although  all  acknowledged 
its  beauty;  somehow  we  missed  the  personality. 
"It  is  not  our  Mrs.  Palmer,"  they  said.  There 
were  the  clothes;  a  satin  train  rolling  down  in 
gorgeous  waves  to  the  very  end  of  the  canvas; 
a  beautiful  head,  held  like  a  dove's  startled  from 
its  preening;  flesh  of  almost  unexampled  painting, 
362 


ANDERS    ZORN 

and  eyes  which  recognized  you  when  you  looked 
at  them. 

Mrs.  Palmer  came  to  my  office  before  the  meet- 
ing was  actually  in  session.  "Of  course,"  said  she, 
"there  will  be  as  many  opinions  about  it  as  there 
are  lady  commissioners,  and  they  were  so  sweet 
in  wanting  it  that  I  want  them  to  like  it.  Can't 
you  say  something  which  will  give  them  a  point 
of  view  after  the  picture  has  been  unveiled  and 
Mr.  Zorn  introduced?"  And  she  vanished  to 
answer  some  important  summons,  leaving  me 
wondering,  as  I  looked  in  the  little  office  glass 
and  pulled  out  my  hat  ribbons,  if  I  could  make 
them  see  alike. 

But  when  I  stood  on  the  platform  and  the  por- 
trait smiled  at  me,  I  said  I  had  never  seen  a 
thought  painted  except  in  two  portraits  before 
this — one  being  the  picture  of  the  child  Beatrix 
Goelet  in  Sargent's  portrait  of  "The  Little  Girl 
and  the  Parrot,"  where  the  wee  thing  was  think- 
ing to  herself,  and  the  other  that  of  Miss  Eliza- 
beth Chanler  (now  Mrs.  Chapman),  which  looked 
out  at  you,  as  this  portrait  did.  Only  one  was  a 
conscious  look  and  the  other  a  recognizing  one, 
and  I  reminded  them  that  when  Mrs.  Palmer 
spoke  in  the  national  conferences,  first  she  looked 
at  the  lady  commissioners  and  smiled  a  friendly 
recognition  to  the  waiting  faces,  and  then  a  little 
pause.  And  in  that  pause  the  thought  she  was 
about  to  utter  rose  up  and  looked  out  of  her 
363 


YESTERDAYS 

eyes.  I  said,  "Mr.  Zorn  has  painted  that  thought, 
and  to  me  that  is  Mrs.  Palmer." 

"Did  I?"  said  he,  when  we  met  in  the  evening, 
and  then,  with  the  utmost  simplicity,  "Yes,  I 
think  it  is  there."  And  then  he  went  on  to  ex- 
plain to  me  the  extreme  freedom  of  handling  in 
the  folds  of  the  long  white  satin  train,  at  which  I 
had  admiringly  wondered. 

"You  see,"  said  he,  "I  was  just  doing  that  when 
a  telephone  message  came  for  Mrs.  Palmer,  and 
she  vanished  in  a  moment,  and  I  was  left  sitting 
before  the  canvas  in  the  picture-gallery  with  the 
empty  gown  which  she  had  sent  in  by  the  maid 
who  was  to  act  as  a  lay -figure.  You  may  imagine 
I  was  disturbed!  And  my  brushes  would  not 
work  properly!  Then  I  noticed  the  housemaid 
who  was  beginning  to  clean  the  gallery  floor  mak- 
ing long  sweeps  with  her  brush;  and  I  borrowed 
it  and  finished  the  robe  without  trouble."  And 
he  chuckled  over  the  achievement.  So  did  I, 
and  whenever  I  looked  afterward  at  the  great, 
lustrous  whites  in  the  painting  of  the  satin 
tissues  of  the  train  I  remembered  the  scrubbing- 
brush. 

When  my  husband  and  daughter  (formerly 
Dora  Wheeler,  now  Mrs.  Keith)  came  to  Chicago 
to  see  the  ceiling  mounted,  which  she  had  painted 
for  the  room  in  the  Woman's  Building  which  had 
been  allotted  to  the  New  York  Commission  for 
a  national  library  of  women  authors,  they  melted 
364 


ANDERS    ZORN 

readily  into  the  artistic  circle  of  the  hotel  and 
Fair,  and  became  very  warm  friends  with  the 
Zorns,  both  husband  and  wife. 

Mrs.  Zorn  was  a  woman  of  literary  cultivation 
and  fine  social  accomplishments,  and  after  the 
work  of  the  Fair  was  over  and  a  few  special  por- 
traits painted,  they  visited  us  in  New  York,  where 
Mr.  Zorn  had  many  commissions  and  Mrs.  Zorn 
found  much  to  interest  her.  Mr.  Zorn  took  Mrs. 
Keith's  studio  in  Twenty-third  Street  which  Mr. 
Sargent  had  occupied  the  year  before  and  in 
which  many  notable  portraits  had  been  painted. 
It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  watch  the  creation  of 
these  works  of  art,  and  as  we  knew  most  of  the 
people  he  was  painting  we  saw  very  much  of  it. 
He  liked  to  have  his  sitters  entertained,  and  always 
wanted  Mrs.  Keith  or  me  to  spend  an  hour  or 
two  of  each  sitting  in  the  studio. 

Sometimes  he  had  dilemmas.  One  day  it  was 
a  lady  of  undeniable  beauty  who  was  also  a 
popular  society  belle.  Somehow  the  portrait  did 
not  go.  It  looked  like  anybody's  painting,  and  I 
wondered  if  this  great  master  ever  painted  things 
which  were  absolutely  bad. 

Mr.  Zorn  evidently  knew  what  his  brushes 
were  doing,  and  grew  more  and  more  uneasy, 
until  he  bethought  himself  of  a  headache  and 
closed  the  sitting.  After  dinner  he  turned  a  con- 
templative and  bewildered  look  upon  me  and 
broke  into  speech. 

365 


YESTERDAYS 

"What  is  the  matter  with  that  picture?  It 
looks  like  the  devil!"  he  said.  Whereat  we  all 
laughed  and  tried  to  console  him. 

"But  what  is  the  matter  with  it?  It  looks  like 
her,  and  she  is  a  good-looking  woman,  but  it's 
just  bad." 

"Now,  Anders,"  said  Dora — for  this  childlike 
man  had  become  "Anders"  to  all  of  us,  "just 
paint  the  good  looks  and  don't  try  to  paint  char- 
acter, for  the  kind  you  like  isn't  there!" 

The  next  day  I  went  in  after  the  sitting,  and 
he  showed  me  the  portrait  triumphantly.  It  was 
charming ! 

"I  just  went  after  the  good  looks,  as  Dora 
said,  and  I  like  it!  I  like  it!" 

"Did  you  paint  it  all  out?"  I  asked. 

"Yes!  Just  blotted  it  all  over  and  then  I 
painted  her  eyes  until  they  looked  at  me,  and  then 
I  went  on  and  painted  the  face  to  match.  It  isn't 
a  stunning  likeness,  but  it's  a  mighty  good  pict- 
ure, and  I'm  satisfied  with  it." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "if  you  say  it's  a  good  picture — " 

"What?"  he  asked. 

"Why,  you  know  a  good  picture  when  you 
see  it." 

"Yes,"  said  he,  hesitatingly,  "if  I  did  not  paint 
it!"  That  was  so  like  the  delightful  candor  of 
the  man. 

The  very  next  night  he  brought  home  a  little  old 
canvas  in  no  frame  at  all,  which  he  had  bought 
366 


ANDERS    ZORN 

in  an  antique-shop  and  thought  was  a  Ribera. 
All  the  evening  he  fussed  over  it,  working  the 
old  varnish  off  by  rubbing  it  with  his  thumb  and 
forefinger.  The  varnish  came  off  in  little  rolls 
like  dust,  and  finally  became  colored  dust  of 
paint,  but  still  the  picture  remained  a  picture; 
gradually,  however,  it  changed,  and  mountains 
came  out  against  the  sky,  and  a  river  appeared. 

"Hello!"  said  my  son,  who  had  watched  the 
finger- work  carefully.  "There  is  another  picture 
underneath.  You  have  spoiled  your  Ribera, 
Anders." 

"Perhaps  not,"  said  Anders.  "Maybe  I  shall 
like  the  underneath  one  better  than  he  did. 
Painters  don't  always  know  their  best,  and  he 
might  have  been  seized  with  an  idea,  and  was 
short  of  canvas,  and  so  painted  over  this.  But  it 
is  a  Ribera!" 

"But  suppose,"  said  my  son,  "a  hundred  or 
two  years  from  now  some  painter  comes  across 
that  portrait  you  are  painting  of  Mrs.  Blank  in 
an  antique-shop,  and  buys  it  because  it  is  a 
'Zorn,'  and  begins  to  restore  it,  and  then  comes 
across  the  first  Mrs.  Blank.  Do  you  think  it  will 
satisfy  him  because  it  is  a  'Zorn'?" 

"Perhaps,"  said  Anders,  musingly.  "Painters 
don't  always  know  which  is  their  best." 

While  Mr.  Zorn  was  with  us  he  painted  a  por- 
trait of  Mr.  Wheeler  as  to  which  there  could  be 
only  one  opinion.  It  was  certainly  "the  best" — 
367 


YESTERDAYS 

painted  in  his  happiest  mood  and  in  his  untired 
morning  hours. 

Mr.  Wheeler  had  a  habit  of  leaving  the  break- 
fast-table as  soon  as  his  cup  of  coffee  was  finished, 
and  going  to  a  windowed  corner  of  the  room  to 
read  the  morning  paper  while  the  family  remained 
for  their  hour  of  food  and  talk.  On  one  of  these 
mornings  Mr.  Zorn  asked  Dora  if  her  canvas  and 
paints  were  up-stairs,  adding :  "  I  must  paint '  Papa 
Wheeler'  in  that  corner.  It  is  too  good  to  lose." 

"But  I  have  no  easel  here,"  explained  she. 

"Never  mind.    I  will  do  with  a  chair-back." 

When  she  returned  with  an  unstretched  piece 
of  canvas  and  brushes  and  paints  and  apologies, 
he  pinned  the  canvas  on  a  tall  dining-room  chair- 
back,  placed  the  brushes  and  painting-box  on  the 
seat,  knelt  before  it,  and  began  to  squeeze  the 
tubes  on  the  palette.  Almost  before  Mr.  Wheeler 
realized  that  he  was  sitting  for  a  portrait  it  was 
begun ;  and  before  the  morning  light  had  changed 
its  direction  and  the  morning  hours  were  gone  it 
was  finished. 

And  there  on  the  chair-back  was  a  monumental 
portrait !  The  head  in  strong  south  light,  the  sun 
glancing  in  pink  flesh  tints  between  the  fingers 
holding  the  morning  paper — a  wonderful  painting 
of  light  and  shadow,  on  a  perfectly  placed  subject ! 

"It  is  as  good  a  thing  as  ever  I  did !"  pronounced 
the  painter.  And  then,  turning  to  his  wife, 
"Isn't  it,  Emma?" 

368 


ANDERS    ZORN 

There  was  nothing  to  say.  I  walked  up  and 
kissed  that  wonderful  right  hand. 

His  own  dictum — "as  good  a  thing  as  ever  I 
did" — has  been  confirmed  by  many  a  painter  and 
picture-lover  since  then. 

When  Miss  Hallowell  came  to  see  it  she  ex- 
claimed, "Why  isn't  that  as  good  as  a  Rem- 
brandt?" 

"I  think  it  is,"  said  I. 

"And  I  think  it  is,"  said  she. 

And  then  we  chatted  as  to  who  in  the  world  of 
living  painters  could  paint  as  well  as  Rembrandt, 
and  we  decided  for  ourselves  that  there  were  just 
two  men  who,  at  their  best,  could  reach  that  height 
— John  Sargent  and  Anders  Zorn.  Having  ex- 
pressed this  opinion,  we  were  convinced  of  its 
truth  and  proceeded  to  repeat  it  to  our  friends. 

Mr.  Wheeler's  portrait  was  not  the  only  tour 
de  force  which  Mr.  Zorn  was  moved  to  accomplish 
through  the  temptation  of  accidental  effect.  He 
made  an  etching  of  our  picturesque,  abundantly 
tressed  Maggie,  the  waitress,  who  belonged  to 
the  fast-disappearing  band  of  blue-eyed,  black- 
haired,  aboriginal-looking  Irish  maids  who  were 
formerly  to  be  found  in  every  ship-load  of  emi- 
grants. It  is  an  etching  which  is  still  sought  for 
and  treasured  among  collectors. 

An  attenuated  correspondence  between  the 
much-loved  "Emma"  and  ourselves,  and  occa- 
sional visits  from  the  master  in  the  intervals  of 
24  369 


YESTERDAYS 

his  labor  of  painting  some  great  financier,  or 
statesman  who  has  reached  the  height  of  his 
glory  and  wishes  to  prolong  it  into  the  region  of 
posterity,  keep  the  thread  of  friendship  and  appre- 
ciation unbroken,  and  we  can  still  enjoy  the  pleas- 
ure of  having  known  and  knowing  one  of  the 
greatest  of  living  painters — Anders  Zorn. 


XIV 

A   SEASON   IN   LONDON 

/*~\NE  of  the  summers  we  spent  abroad,  dur- 
^-'  ing  the  passing  of  "The  Associated  Artists" 
years,  was  peculiarly  rich  in  opportunities  and 
pleasures.  Mr.  Lowell  was  then  American  Min- 
ister to  England,  and,  unforgetting  of  his  former 
days  of  kindness  to  the  young  invalid  in  the  Rue 
du  Bac,  he  gave  Dora  letters  which  gained  special 
concessions  in  public  galleries  and  allowed  her  to 
copy  pictures  on  any  and  all  days  which  were  con- 
venient to  her.  It  was  pleasant  to  be  placed  by 
his  charming  letters  of  introduction,  and  also  to 
be  taken  about  among  the  great  English  painters 
by  a  man  who  knew  them  so  well  as  our  friend, 
Mr.  R.  R.  Bowker. 

In  this  way  we  visited  Sir  Frederick  Leighton, 
Watts,  Burne-Jones,  and  Alma  Tadema.  Having 
brought  letters  from  home  to  Whistler,  du  Mau- 
rier,  and  others,  and  being  in  time  for  the  exhibi- 
tions of  the  Royal  Academy  and  numerous  private 
exhibitions,  we  were  presently  absorbed  in  con- 
temporary art  and  in  the  men  who  made  it. 


YESTERDAYS 

Our  painters  in  America  never  seem  to  reach 
the  secure  place  of  the  successful  English  painter, 
in  spite  of  the  amount  of  money  which  flows 
into  the  hands  of  those  who  become  prominent. 
The  president  of  the  Royal  Academy  is  much 
more  of  a  personage  in  London  than  it  is  possible, 
I  think,  for  any  American  painter  to  become  in 
New  York.  The  admiration  of  an  English  pub- 
lic, once  gained,  can  be  permanently  counted  on, 
and  as  London  still  sets  the  fashion  for  us  in 
art,  as  in  all  luxurious  expenditure,  the  acquire- 
ment by  an  artist  of  a  London  reputation  means 
the  appreciation  of  the  English-speaking  world. 
This  accounts  for  the  fact  that  some  of  the  most 
brilliant  painters  of  America  have  elected  to  re- 
main permanently  in  England.  The  persistence 
of  English  regard  seems  to  have  held  even  the 
iridescent  mind  of  Whistler,  while  Sargent  and 
Abbey  have  quietly  taken  or  made  their  places 
in  English  social  life.  They  do  great  work  for 
world-appreciation  apparently  without  anxiety 
or  inordinate  effort,  while  here  our  best  men 
are  constantly  jostled  aside. 

Something  of  this  restfulness  and  security  ap- 
pears in  the  establishments  of  the  prominent 
English  painters.  I  observed  that  one  did  not 
speak  of  visiting  the  studios  of  Sir  Frederick 
Leighton,  or  Watts,  or  Burne- Jones,  or  Alma 
Tadema;  one  went  to  their  houses,  of  which  the 
studio  was  a  part;  in  short,  they  were  important 
372 


JAMES   RUSSELL  LOWELL   AT   FORTY 


A   SEASON    IN    LONDON 

members  of  the  world  of  men,  as  well  as  important 
painters.  Of  course  this  prominence  may  not 
include  the  verdict  of  immortality  for  one's  work 
— that  belongs  to  future  generations.  Much  that 
is  good  and  satisfactory  in  its  period  falls  through 
the  meshes  of  the  sieve  of  time,  but  this  does 
not  in  the  least  diminish  the  satisfaction  of  con- 
temporary appreciation. 

We  went  to  Sir  Frederick  Leighton's  on  a  day 
of  his  own  appointing,  so  we  had  a  monopoly  of 
his  graciousness,  which  indeed  was  extreme.  His 
very  decorative  personality  fitted  his  place.  He 
was  large,  dark,  and  handsome,  and  was  attired 
in  a  velvet  coat  with  a  red  tie.  The  artist,  the 
gentleman,  and  the  man  of  importance  were  so 
intimately  blended  that  they  were  one. 

We  were  interested  in  the  house  as  well  as  the 
studio.  Sir  Frederick  took  us  from  room  to  room, 
ending  by  a  private  view  from  the  lawn  of  a  game 
of  tennis  played  by  a  very  notable  club  of  very 
notable  people.  A  small  room  on  the  first  floor, 
in  the  center  of  which  was  a  small  fountain  and 
where  walls  and  floor  were  entirely  covered  with 
priceless  old  Moorish  tiles,  was  evidently  a  cher- 
ished possession.  Here  he  had  been  able  to  bring 
together  all  the  blues  of  heaven  and  earth  in  the 
melting  translucence  of  enamel. 

It  is  really  disconcerting  to  see  the  beauty  of  a 
thing  and  to  feel  that  there  are  a  thousand  reasons 
of  value  behind  the  beauty,  of  which  the  possessor 
373 


YESTERDAYS 

is  fully  aware  and  you,  the  beholder,  are  not.  Still 
there  was  enough  that  was  apparent  in  all  this 
radiance  of  color  and  surface  to  impress  one  and 
make  even  uninstructed  admiration  safely  voluble. 

I  think  that  perhaps  the  room  would  have  been 
more  impressive  without  the  conflicting  attrac- 
tions of  our  host.  There  was,  however,  a  place 
on  the  fine  staircase  ascending  to  the  studio  floor, 
where  he  was  distinctly  harmonious.  It  had  a 
short  landing — contrived  perhaps  for  the  pur- 
pose— where  a  lustrous  sweep  of  dark-brown  vel- 
vet, with  lights  of  gold  in  its  upper  folds,  fell  over 
the  balustrade  and  downward,  and  on  which  a 
magnificent  peacock  was  cunningly  posed,  the 
thousand  iridescent  eyes  at  the  ends  of  the  long 
tail-feathers  showing  against  the  sweeping  folds 
of  the  velvet,  and  its  crested  head,  and  wonderful 
mingling  of  greens  and  blues  in  the  body,  rising 
above.  I  think  the  window  from  which  selected 
rays  of  light  fell  upon  this  vision  of  color  must 
have  been  instructed  as  to  the  precise  amount 
of  light,  and  the  motion  and  direction  of  it,  which 
was  its  duty  to  dispense. 

The  studio  could  hardly  have  been  the  painting- 
room  of  the  master;  it  was  far  more  like  a  gallery 
or  exhibition-room  of  modern  pictures,  chosen  by 
a  man  widely  appreciative  of  excellence  and  sensi- 
tive to  motives  and  moods  of  artists.  The  most 
prominent  picture  in  the  room  was  a  large  replica, 
or,  indeed,  for  aught  I  know,  the  original,  of 
374 


A   SEASON   IN   LONDON 

Watts's  "Hope."  This  stood  in  a  central  posi- 
tion on  an  easel,  and  Leighton  commented  upon 
it  with  evident  satisfaction,  asking  us  if  we  had 
seen  Mr.  Watts  in  his  studio  and  talking  of  his 
pictures  with  enthusiasm. 

Indeed,  he  was  genuinely  enthusiastic  in  praise 
of  the  work  of  the  men  of  the  day,  speaking 
always,  I  noticed,  from  the  inside,  as  it  were, 
and  interpreting  the  dominant  thought  of  the 
painter.  The  technique  of  the  work  seemed  to 
be  of  much  less  importance  to  him  than  the 
thought  of  the  artist.  I  was  impressed  with  this 
at  the  time  as  being  an  indication  not  only  of  the 
man,  but  of  English  art,  which  seemed  to  lack 
the  feverish  importance  attached  to  methods  of 
portrayal  which  one  feels  in  the  American  school. 
There,  the  thing  expressed  is  comparatively  value- 
less, unless  brought  to  light  by  one  invariable 
method — a  freedom  of  splash  and  stroke  which  is 
supposed  to  express  a  power  able  to 'be  reckless. 
It  was  a  great  relief  to  me  at  the  time  to  find  that 
there  were  really  as  many  ways  of  painting  as 
there  were  artists,  and  that  freedom  of  touch 
was  not  a  necessary  shibboleth. 

There  were  single  figures  and  parts  of  large 
pictures  of  Leighton's  own  in  the  room,  and  one 
or  two  life-size  studies  with  which  he  appeared 
well  satisfied.  There  was  also  a  plaster  of  a  charm- 
ing statue  of  a  youth,  the  marble  of  which  was 
in  the  Royal  Academy  exhibit  of  the  year,  and 
375 


YESTERDAYS 

which  seemed  to  interest  the  painter  at  the  time 
much  more  than  his  pictures.  But  I  was  espe- 
cially interested  in  the  man  himself,  in  his  dignified 
and  graceful  personality,  which  included  color,  and 
in  the  artistic  expression  of  the  house  which  was 
so  essentially  a  part  of  himself. 

It  was  very  amusing,  immediately  after  this 
visit  to  the  crown-prince  of  art,  to  transfer  our- 
selves to  the  presence  of  Whistler,  who  seemed 
by  contrast  to  express  the  very  iridescence  of  it. 
He  was  awaiting  us  in  his  studio,  an  American- 
looking  studio,  only  far  less  opulent. 

He  was  a  man  whose  dark  eyes,  under  the  very 
movable  eyebrows,  might  have  been  called  anxious- 
looking,  like  a  sorrowful  greyhound's,  except  that 
the  greyhound's  would  not  have  held  a  certain 
gleam  of  malice  which  was  certainly  apparent  in 
Whistler's.  Even  when  he  was  still  his  figure 
seemed  to  express  a  catlike  movement  which 
was  surprisingly  like  Chase's  portrait  of  him  come 
to  life. 

"Yes,"  I  said  to  myself,  "it  is  the  ideal  Whis- 
tler, even  to  the  floating  white  lock  in  his  other- 
wise coal-black,  lusterless  hair."  I  think  he  was 
conscious  of  the  white  plume,  or  it  was  conscious 
of  itself,  which  was  the  same  thing,  for  it  had  a 
way  of  standing  up  and  waving  as  he  moved. 

The  very  first  words  he  uttered  were,  "Have 
you  seen  my  brown-and-gold  exhibition?" 

"Yes,"  I  answered;  "it  was  the  first  thing  we 
376 


A    SEASON    IN    LONDON 

went  to  see  in  London."  Seeing  him  as  he  strode 
and  poised  about  the  studio,  while  we  stood  in 
front  of  one  and  another  of  his  wonderful  por- 
traits, I  understood  his  brown-and-gold  exhibition. 
Whistler  himself  revealed  it  to  me. 

It  was  held  in  a  small  room  with  gold-tinted 
walls,  behind  a  shop  of  painters'  supplies  in  one 
of  the  commercial  streets  of  London.  The  wide 
opening  between  the  shop  and  exhibition-room 
was  hung  with  a  gold-brown  curtain,  against  which 
stood  a  man  in  livery  in  darker  brown,  corded 
with  gold,  offering  leaf  catalogues  as  we  entered. 

Once  in,  we  wondered,  "Where  is  the  'exhi- 
bition'?" It  consisted  of  a  series  of  leaves  from 
a  sketch-book,  fastened  in  a  line-of-sight  row 
against  the  wall  and  dwindling  in  size  from  six 
by  eight  to  two  by  four,  the  latter  size  being  often 
just  three  or  four  pencil  lines  indicating  sea,  or 
mountain,  or  tree,  or  the  curve  of  a  figure  or 
face — just  a  suggestion — sometimes  with  a  red 
or  blue  pencil  line  added  to  indicate  color.  Liter- 
ally, they  were  leaves  from  a  painter's  note-book 
and  consequently  of  interest  to  any  student  of 
Whistler's,  or,  for  that  matter,  of  any  good  paint- 
er's work.  But  the  brown-and-gold  setting !  And 
the  entrance  fee!  That  would  have  been  a  huge 
joke  if  it  had  not  been  Whistler,  and,  being  Whistler, 
it  was  natural.  It  might  be  either  a  little  con- 
temptuous fling  at  the  worshiping  public  or  a 
genuine  and  serious  belief  in  its  own  importance, 
377 


YESTERDAYS 

It  was  hard  to  tell,  in  the  presence  of  the  man 
and  of  his  serious  and  remarkable  work,  whether 
the  fascination  one  felt  for  him  and  it  originated 
in  Whistler's  mind  or  your  own;  whether  it  was 
his  appreciation  or  yours  which  dominated  you. 
And  all  the  time  he  talked,  not  of  pictures  or 
things,  but  of  people.  He  seemed  to  be  bumping 
against  them,  and  crowded  by  them,  and  mostly 
disapproving  of  them;  and,  in  spite  of  the  op- 
portunity of  seeing  some  startlingly  good  painting, 
my  chief  consciousness  in  coming  away  was  a 
very  tumultuous  half -hour. 

"What  do  you  think  of  him?"  we  said  to  each 
other  over  our  home  cup  of  tea. 

"I  don't  know,"  we  answered,  mutually. 

And  always  since  then  I  must  confess  that  in 
the  presence  of  Whistler's  work  the  man's  per- 
sonality so  possesses  it  that  it  is  never  quiet  long 
enough  for  me  to  truly  consider  and  quietly  enjoy 
the  art  of  it.  Verily,  it  adds  to  the  fullness  of 
life  that  men  differ! 

It  was  on  one  of  these  blessed  London  days  that 
our  friend,  Mr.  Bowker,  proposed  a  drive  out  to 
Hempstead  and  a  call  at  the  du  Mauriers'.  Du 
Maurier?  Certainly  we  would,  and  be  more  than 
delighted.  How  good  to  be  outside  of  London  on 
such  a  day,  and  going  to  Hempstead! 

' '  Is  Hempstead  a  relative  of  Hempstead  Heath  ?" 
we  asked. 

"It  is  Hempstead  Heath,"  was  the  answer. 
378 


A    SEASON    IN   LONDON 

"And  are  there  lonely  roads  and  highway  rob- 
bers, and  dark  pools  and  hills  and  hollows,  and  all 
the  things  we  have  read  of  in  every  English  book 
written  fifty  years  ago?" 

"Not  the  robbers,  but  most  of  the  other  things," 
was  the  reply,  and  we  drove  on  through  the  de- 
lightsomeness  of  an  English  early  summer.  There 
were  houses,  of  course,  but  somehow  they  made 
no  impression.  We  were  looking  for  highwaymen 
on  horseback,  and  listening  for  larks.  Finally 
our  carriage  stopped  at  a  white  gate  in  a  white 
wall,  with  green  things  on  every  hand — a  solid 
white  wall  too  high  to  look  over  and  see  what  was 
within,  and  equally  too  high  to  look  over  and  see 
what  was  without.  Just  a  plain,  high  white  wall. 

"Why  do  we  stop?"  we  asked. 

"It  is  the  du  Mauriers'." 

"Is  he  locked  up  for  anything?" 

"Not  to-day." 

We  passed  through  a  garden  wall  and  a  space 
of  garden  beds,  and  into  a  house  and  up  a  flight 
of  stairs,  and  so  into  a  comfortable,  homey  recep- 
tion-room, which  seemed  at  first  sight  full  of 
people.  After  a  little  disentangling,  however,  the 
crowd  resolved  itself  into,  first,  a  tall,  handsome 
woman  whom  we  had  often  seen  taking  afternoon 
tea  or  doing  her  part  in  the  du  Maurier  sketches, 
and  this  was  Mrs.  du  Maurier;  and  a  slim,  beau- 
tiful girl  whom  we  had  seen  in  esthetic  gowns  and 
under  most  interesting  circumstances  in  other  of 
379 


YESTERDAYS 

the  du  Manner  sketches,  and  this  was  Miss  du 
Maurier.  And  there  was  a  dog,  such  a  tawny 
bulk  of  a  dog,  with  black  lips  and  nostrils  and  a 
size  which  would  dwarf  any  ordinary  room,  and 
him  also  we  knew  in  the  du  Maurier  sketches. 
There  were  one  or  two  men — "painting  men," 
our  girl  pronounced  them  afterward — and  last  of 
all  du  Maurier  himself,  who  came  forward  re- 
luctantly from  a  window-seat;  and  him  we  had 
never  seen.  He  felt  himself  obliged  to  be  civil, 
for  he  knew  and  evidently  liked  the  friend  who 
convoyed  us;  incidentally  Mr.  Bowker  represented 
the  great  house  of  Harper  &  Brothers.  Du 
Maurier  knew  his  kind,  but  strange  women  who 
expected  to  be  talked  to!  Our  friend  tried  with 
considerable  tact  to  convey  the  impression  that 
we  were  "worth  while,"  and  we  were  reluctantly 
led  into  the  studio,  and  then  almost  immediately 
lured  back  to  the  reception-room  by  Mrs.  du 
Maurier  and  the  daughter  with  offerings  of  tea. 
It  was  amusing  to  see  that  girl  and  our  girl  take 
stock  of  each  other.  Each  one  had  evidently 
been  used  at  every  turn  of  her  life  to  pleasing  her 
audience,  and  each  knew  it  and  did  not  wonder; 
so  each  looked  at  the  other  and  took  mental 
notes  and  waited  for  developments.  But  the 
shyness  or  the  withdrawing  of  the  English  girl! 
It  was  like  the  white  wall  outside  the  garden; 
she  who  was  within  could  not  see  over,  and  she 
who  was  without  could  not  look  in.  But  the 
380 


A    SEASON    IN    LONDON 

mother  spoke  for  her  and  proposed  to  bring  her 
to  see  us,  and  after  all  we  parted  with  a  very 
pleasant  impression  of  the  shut-in  English  family, 
and  a  very  laughable  impression  of  du  Maurier's 
armor  of  defense. 

It  was  just  a  little  before  the  appearance  of 
Trilby  and  its  immense  success  in  America;  and 
after  it  we  were  glad  to  have  had  even  this 
guarded  view  of  the  wonderful  small  man  who 
had  given  to  the  world  the  introspective  dreams 
of  Peter  Ibbetson  and  the  vivid  word  pictures  of 
unfettered  artist  youth  in  Paris,  interpretations  of 
the  puzzling  and  fascinating  Trilby  and  her  kind, 
as  well  as  the  reflection  of  her  and  her  kind  upon 
the  masculine  element  at  its  best  and  worst. 

We  had  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Mrs.  Craik, 
whom  we  had  thought  of  for  many  years  as  Dinah 
Maria  Mulock,  a  name  which  meant  Agatha's  Hus- 
band, that  delightful  old  novel  which  in  those  days 
was  not  an  old  one — new  enough,  indeed,  for 
Agatha's  strip  of  white  fur  at  throat  and  wrists 
to  be  always  fresh  and  unsullied.  This,  and 
Philip,  My  King,  and  Douglas,  Douglas,  Tender 
and  True,  had  made  her  name  one  to  which  we 
longed  to  fit  a  personality. 

The  letter  of  introduction  brought  not  only  an 
immediate,  but  a  kindly  and  cordial,  answer, 
saying  that  owing  to  a  temporary  lameness  Mrs. 
Craik  was  unable  to  come  to  town,  but  would 
we  come  out  to  luncheon  on  a  specified  day,  taking 
381 


YESTERDAYS 

a  specified  train  ?  Of  course  we  would !  This  was 
just  another  opportunity  of  bringing  a  real  person 
and  a  dream  person  together,  and  sliding  one  into 
the  other,  so  that  we  could  say  to  ourselves 
henceforth:  "I  knew  Dinah  Maria  Mulock!  She 
was  large  and  fair!"  or:  "She  was  small  and  dark 
and  spoke  slowly,  or  with  volubility,"  as  the  case 
might  be. 

We  took  the  specified  train  on  the  specified 
day,  and,  upon  arriving  at  our  destination,  found 
a  pretty  one-horse  open  phaeton  waiting,  with  a 
coachman  in  livery;  and  we  were  driven  to  a 
rather  suburban-looking  cottage,  one  of  a  nu- 
merous flock,  but  saved  from  mediocrity  by  a 
large,  encompassing  garden. 

There  was  a  front  door  like  anybody's  front 
door,  and  a  hall  like  anybody's  hall,  and  a  small 
plain  parlor  also  like  anybody's  parlor,  but  the 
woman  who  waited  for  us  there  was  by  no  means 
one  of  the  anybodies,  or  everybodies,  as  the  house 
seemed  to  indicate.  She  was  distinctly  a  some- 
body, and  not  her  own  somebody,  but  the  world's. 
Larger  and  fairer  and  blue-eyed-er  than  I  had 
expected,  and  also  older,  much  older,  for  I  had 
thought  the  creator  of  Agatha's  perfect  husband 
must  be  at  least  passably  young.  It  turned  out 
afterward  that  we  were  bom  in  the  same  year,  but 
her  dress  gave  her  at  least  twenty  years  the  ad- 
vantage of  me.  I  saw  a  gleam  of  dissent  and  dis- 
approval in  Dora's  eye  when  the  fact  of  the 
382 


A    SEASON    IN    LONDON 

similarity  of  age  was  discussed,  but  it  did  not 
disturb  me.  I  knew  that  the  stout  cane  she  car- 
ried, and  the  large,  fat-looking  black  silk  cloak 
she  wore,  and  the  broad  hat  tied  under  the  chin 
which  she  assumed  when  we  walked  in  the  garden, 
would  make  a  newly  created  Eve  look  old  and 
were  not  a  necessary  part  of  my  own  bodily  equip- 
ment. But  I  envied  her  her  eyes  and  her  sweet 
expression  of  face,  and  indeed  she  was  altogether 
satisfactory.  I  told  her  how  much  I  had  always 
approved  of  the  husband  she  had  manufactured 
or  selected  for  Agatha. 

"Yes,"  said  she,  contentedly,  "a  good  many 
women  have  loved  him.  One  girl  wrote  and  asked 
me  if  he  were  a  real  man,  saying  if  he  were  she 
should  like  to  marry  him.  I  answered  her  that 
if  he  were  I  should  marry  him  myself."  Afterward, 
when  I  saw  Mr.  Craik,  I  wondered  if  he  were  by 
chance  "Agatha's  Husband." 

Mrs.  Craik  talked  to  us  of  the  people  we  knew 
only  as  we  had  known  her,  out  of  the  body;  and 
said,  in  speaking  of  Mrs.  Gaskell,  who  was  to  us, 
of  course,  chiefly  the  author  of  Cranford: 

"But,  after  all,  you  know,  there  is  the  greatest 
possible  variety  in  the  same  person,  because  he 
or  she  differs  so  in  every  mind.  Now  to  me,  Mrs. 
Gaskell  is  not  at  all  the  author  of  any  of  her 
books,  because  she  is  so  distinctly  herself." 

I  think  her  garden  was  much  more  to  Mrs. 
Craik  than  her  house.  At  all  events,  she  donned 
383 


YESTERDAYS 

the  Queen  Victoria-looking  cloak  and  the  large 
tied-down  hat,  and  invited  us  to  the  garden  again 
when  luncheon  was  over,  talking  all  the  while, 
with  an  amiable  characterful  precision  and  a  little 
whimsically,  as  she  gathered  marigold  seeds  for 
me  to  plant  in  my  far-off  garden  across  the  sea. 

That  my  garden  lay  upon  a  mountain-side  and 
commanded  a  view  of  a  great  mountain  range  was 
to  her  a  thing  almost  impossible,  and  indeed,  as 
I  stood  in  the  walk  of  this  suburban  garden, 
it  seemed  to  even  me  like  a  vision  of  the  night 
instead  of  a  vivid  memory. 

The  next  spring  I  detached  a  root  of  old- 
fashioned  clove  pink  from  the  border  of  one  of 
my  mountain-garden  walks  and,  putting  it  in  a 
little  box,  addressed  it  to  Mrs.  George  Craik, 
England.  With  no  word  at  all  I  sent  it  across  the 
water,  and  promptly  forgot  all  about  it  until  a 
letter  came  duly  addressed  to  me  at  Onteora, 
saying,  "It  must  be  you  who  sent  me  a  root  of 
pinks  for  my  garden,  with  a  little  American  worm 
in  it." 

I  do  not  know  why  a  memory  of  a  thing  or  a 
person  your  eyes  have  actually  seen  should  be 
so  much  more  alive  than  the  thing  your  mind 
has  created  and  dwelt  upon  until  it  almost  as- 
sumed reality.  I  had  thought  of  Miss  Mulock 
thousands  of  times  and  had  really  seen  and  read 
her  thoughts,  but  that  one  luncheon  with  Mrs. 
Craik  gave  me  a  picture  quite  apart  from  the 
384 


A    SEASON   IN   LONDON 

person  I  was  so  familiar  with  in  my  mind ;  in  fact, 
it  was  not  an  authoress  at  all,  but  a  dear,  agree- 
able Englishwoman. 

De  Morgan  is  a  comparatively  new  name  in 
literature,  but  the  books  which  have  appeared 
under  his  signature  during  the  last  few  years  have 
been  sufficiently  different  from  the  literary  out- 
put to  convince  the  public  that  something  can 
yet  be  said  that  has  not  been  said  before,  or  in 
quite  the  same  light  and  the  same  way.  Of  course, 
this  was  to  be  expected  of  a  new  man  who  had 
lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  original  and  inde- 
pendent thinking.  When  I  read  the  first  De 
Morgan  book,  Alice  for  Short,  I  was  reminded  that 
I  had  met  the  author  in  his  own  studio-manufac- 
tory in  Old  Chelsea,  and  that  a  jar  or  piece  of 
pottery  which  I  have  owned  with  peculiar  pleasure 
came  from  his  hands. 

At  that  time  Mr.  De  Morgan  was  groping 
among  chemical  combinations  for  the  precise  ad- 
ditions to  clay  which  produced  the  famous  old 
Spanish  luster;  and  among  his  experiments  was  a 
jar  with  a  changeable  color  as  near  the  flashing 
of  flame  as  one  could  imagine.  It  happened 
that  I  was  able  to  buy  it,  because  on  its  right 
cheek  was  a  blemish — a  scar  of  color,  one  might 
call  it — which  made  it  in  Mr.  De  Morgan's  eyes 
an  imperfect  specimen;  but  to  me  it  was  only  a 
limitation  which  marked  the  course  of  artistic 
study  and  did  not  interfere  with  artistic  effect. 
25  385 


YESTERDAYS 

This  piece  of  pottery  has  always  been  a  joy  to  me, 
holding  within  itself,  as  it  does,  under  the  polished 
surface,  something  which  seems  like  the  very 
heart  of  fire;  and  when  I  am  quite  bewildered  with 
the  changeable  beauty  of  morning-gathered  nas- 
turtiums I  put  them  in  my  flame-colored  De 
Morgan  jar,  and  the  two  together  light  up  the 
indoors  like  a  gleam  of  fire. 

After  seeing  Mr.  De  Morgan  in  the  midst  of  his 
ceramic  experiments  and  hearing  his  pleasant 
talk,  not  only  about  the  people  and  things  of  the 
day,  but  of  all  that  pertained  to  the  past  of  art, 
one  could  easily  see  that  if  he  chose  to  speak  to 
the  public  in  books  his  talk  would  be  of  interest. 

During  the  hour  of  our  visit  Mr.  De  Morgan 
spoke  of  the  next  house  as  the  "Carlyle  house," 
the  one  which  had  held  the  bodily  presences  of 
the  great  man  and  his  Jane,  with  all  their  mighty 
struggles  and  impatiences,  their  heights  and  their 
depths;  and  my  eager  interest  prompted  him  to 
say  that  his  mother  had  been  an  intimate  friend 
of  the  Carlyles  for  many  years,  and  could  take 
me  through  it.  This  was  opportunity  which  I 
made  haste  to  seize,  and  speedily  found  myself 
in  the  hall  of  the  little  two-and-a-half -story,  gray- 
looking  house  next  door. 

Somehow  it  suggested  at  once  all  the  house- 
cleaning  and  renovating  and  inefficient  servant 
troubles  which  one  reads  of,  and  is  made  to  feel 
so  vividly  in  Mrs.  Carlyle's  brilliant  letters.  Here 
386 


A    SEASON    IN    LONDON 

were  the  sorry-looking  walls  which  she  had  tried 
to  amend  with  papers  and  chalk-washings  during 
Carlyle's  infrequent  absences 

On  the  left  of  this  first-floor  hall  was  his  study, 
only  three  steps  above  the  street,  full  of  the  noises 
which  scratched  and  tore  at  his  irritable  nerves. 
It  made  one  feel  that  fate  had  been  very  unkind 
to  this  big  intellect  when  it  wrapped  him  in  such 
a  sensitive  earthly  tissue  and  set  him  down  in 
this  particular  spot. 

At  the  end  of  the  narrow  hall,  a  few  steps 
brought  us  to  a  square  landing  lighted  by  a  win- 
dow, and  here  we  turned  and  mounted  another 
short  flight  of  stairs  to  the  main  floor  and  drawing- 
room  of  the  house.  There  were  chairs  here,  and 
while  we  sat  for  a  little  talk,  another  neighbor, 
who  had  seen  us  enter,  came  across  the  street  to 
join  us.  She  was  a  tall,  spare,  more  than  middle- 
aged  Scotchwoman,  and  she  entered  into  the  most 
familiar  talk  of  the  Carlyles,  just  as  any  ordinary 
country  neighbors  might  come  into  our  own  houses 
after  we  were  gone,  and  open  to  the  light  all  our 
little  quarrels  with  life,  and  all  our  private  idiosyn- 
crasies. The  neighbor  was  quite,  quite  Scotch, 
and  very  uncompromising. 

"Jean  was  an  ill  woman  to  live  with,  poor  soul!" 
she  said,  and  then  came  the  illustration. 

"I  came  in  to  see  her  one  morning,  and  met 
Carlyle  on  the  landing  going  to  his  study.  He  was 
in  his  dressing-gown,  with  his  hair  rumpled,  and 
387 


YESTERDAYS 

looking  quite  out  of  sorts.  When  I  came  into  this 
room  Jean  was  sitting  by  the  grate,  wrapped  in  a 
shawl,  her  little  table  and  tea-things  beside  her. 

"'What's  wrong  with  Carlyle?'  I  asked.  'I  met 
him  on  the  stairs,  and  he  looked  rumpled  and 
didn't  stop  to  speak  to  me.' 

"'Oh,'  said  she,  'I  just  threw  a  teacup  at  him! 
I  have  been  ill  a  week,  and  he  has  taken  no  notice 
of  it,  and  when  he  came  in  just  now  and  saw  me 
sitting  by  the  fire  and  asked,  "Is  anything  wrong 
with  you,  Jeannie?"  I  just  threw  a  teacup  at  him.'" 

I  was  perfectly  delighted  with  this  neighbor 
talk.  It  seemed  to  make  Carlyle,  and  especially 
"poor  Jean,"  so  real  and — what  was  not  so  pleas- 
ant— so  commonplace,  just  like  any  squabbling 
man  and  woman  who  were  not  capable  of  aerial 
flights. 

On  the  very  spot  where  perhaps  she  had  written 
it,  I  remembered  one  of  Mrs.  Carlyle's  uncol- 
lected  letters,  in  which  she  said  that  while  Carlyle 
was  away  she  had  busied  herself  in  "trying  to 
love  the  devil  out  of  a  little  wild  Manx  cat,"  and 
that  it  had  finally  occurred  to  her  that  she  might 
be  more  successful  in  trying  to  learn  something 
from  the  cat. 

"If  I  could  only  get  the  expression  of  concen- 
trated spite  there  is  in  the  kitten's  s-s-s-p-t,"  she 
said,  "it  would  be  worth  while.  Think  of  trying 
it  on  Carlyle!" 

I  seemed  to  see  the  tall,  frail,  pretty  lady  sitting 
388 


A    SEASON    IN    LONDON 

by  the  grate  as  we  talked,  pathetically  querulous 
and  irresistibly  witty,  and  actually  felt  the  wor- 
ried genius  in  the  study  on  the  floor  below.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  his  ghost  might  be  sitting  there 
with  rumpled  hair  and  heavy  head  on  hands,  try- 
ing to  understand  the  episode  of  the  flying  teacup. 

When  we  walked  out  into  Old  Chelsea,  with  its 
neighborhood  to  the  Embankment,  and  its  half- 
impressive  dust  and  disorder,  I  remembered  that 
Rossetti  had  also  been  housed  there  and  that  it 
was  hallowed — if  a  mere  city  street  can  be  hallowed 
— by  many  other  names  of  men  and  women  who 
had  stepped  forward  from  the  ranks  and  become 
captains  in  the  marching  platoons  of  world- 
thought. 

And  to  think  of  all  these  just  as  "neighbor- 
hood people"  whose  houses  one  goes  in  and  out  of 
following  impulses  of  social  feeling,  or  kindliness, 
or  solicitude  for  little  illnesses!  To  be  anxious, 
for  instance,  about  colds  and  headaches  and  to 
prescribe  for  little  ailments  of  body,  without  being 
invariably  conscious  that  they  were  of  no  im- 
portance at  all  in  connection  with  the  gigantic 
or  overgrown  soul  that  was  wearing  them  as 
children  wear  overshoes  in  rainy  weather. 

It  was  mostly  rainy  weather  for  poor  Jean 
Carlyle,  and,  for  that  matter,  for  the  master  also; 
and  yet  they  must  have  held  high  holidays  to- 
gether, these  two.  But  of  these  they  never  told, 
and  we  can  only  imagine  them  as  belonging  to  the 


YESTERDAYS 

holy  of  holies  where  the  world  cannot  enter.  We 
could  not  know  of  their  joys,  although  all  the 
world  was  to  hear  their  sorrows. 

What,  after  all,  is  it  that  makes  and  keeps  that 
divine  state  which  we  call  peace?  It  is  not  love, 
for  people  who  love  each  other  often  quarrel 
abominably.  A  mother  who  would  lay  down  her 
life  for  her  child  will  not  spare  it  a  pang  from  bit- 
ter words.  That  must  be  utter,  utter  selfishness* 
the  form  of  it  which  is  self-indulgence,  the  want 
of  a  strong  rein  on  the  wayward  self,  which  would 
curb  every  restive  impulse.  Peace  is  the  wait  of 
the  patient  soul. 

On  one  of  our  fortunate  days  Mr.  Lowell  went 
with  us  to  visit  Alma  Tadema  in  the  new  and 
beautiful  house  he  had  built  in  London.  "The 
house  of  ivory,"  some  one  had  called  it,  and  it 
well  deserved  the  name.  We  were  interested  and 
amused  to  see  how  the  poet  came  out  from  behind 
the  ambassador  and  reveled  in  the  beauty  of  it. 
His  delight  in  the  artistic  perfection  of  details 
was  refreshing,  the  specially  designed  and  carven 
door-knobs,  the  grand  piano  with  its  painted  pro- 
cession of  small  dancing  figures  where  timbrels 
and  all  sorts  of  ancient  musical  instruments  came 
into  the  composition,  the  chairs  and  lounges  which 
were  Greek  or  Roman,  according  to  the  fancy 
of  the  artist.  In  short,  it  was  the  playhouse  and 
plaything  of  a  wonderfully  skilful  painter  who 
had  selected  beauty  all  down  the  ages  and  made 
390 


A    SEASON    IN   LONDON 

it  his  own.  When  we  entered  through  the  high 
white  wall  and  gate  we  left  London  behind  us; 
for  within  were  wonders  of  growths  and  flowers, 
and  fountains  and  columns  and  pavements  from 
classic  temples,  and  all  sorts  of  effective  back- 
grounds and  adjuncts  for  pictures  of  the  Tadema 
type.  If  I  could  absolutely  trust  my  memory  I 
should  say  that  there  were  birds  of  the  Egyptian 
ibis  breed  wandering  down  the  garden  walks. 
And  the  wandering  birds  were  only  the  setting 
of  the  house,  as  the  house  was  the  setting  of  the 
family — each  a  fitting  frame  and  enrichment  of 
what  it  held. 

Mr.  Tadema  himself  was  delightful — as  gay  as 
a  drop  of  quicksilver!  as  frank  and  humanly  in- 
terested as  if  the  trend  of  his  whole  life  was 
toward  social  intercourse  instead  of  classic  art! 
The  effect  of  his  personal  attitude  was  to  tempt 
one  into  letting  oneself  go,  as  it  were,  saying  the 
foremost  word  and  uttering  the  topmost  thought, 
and  finding  it  caught  and  tossed  in  the  air  like 
a  bubble.  Fortunately  for  us,  this  was  Mr. 
Lowell's  game,  and  in  the  intervals  of  watching 
the  play  we  took  tea  from  the  hand  of  the  very 
handsome  Mrs.  Tadema  and  talked  with  the  two 
daughters,  who  were  decided  somebodies,  apart 
from  their  distinguished  surroundings.  Mrs.  Tad- 
ema, whom  we  knew  to  be  a  painter,  had  the  air 
of  being  a  natural  growth  of  the  spacious  cream- 
white  room  with  its  consummately  perfect  style 


YESTERDAYS 

and  decorations,  its  abundant  and  yet  restrained 
use  of  gold  and  color,  and  its  classic  furniture. 

We  were  undoubtedly  very  much  set  up  by  the 
fact  that  through  the  unwearied  kindness  of  our 
friends,  and,  above  all,  through  the  constant  good 
offices  of  Mr.  Bowker,  we  met  everybody  that 
we  cared  to  know.  Our  visits  to  the  great  paint- 
ers were  not  casual,  but  appointed  ones;  we  put 
on  our  best  clothes  and  indulged  in  our  best  man- 
ners, as  children  do  on  great  occasions.  We  grew 
prouder  and  prouder  day  by  day  at  our  own  good 
fortune.  To  be  able  to  criticize  at  close  view 
and  on  the  same  floor  celebrities  of  the  first  water 
is  surely  a  privilege,  something  to  think  of  in  days 
that  are  dull  and  in  nights  which  are  sleepless. 

We  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet  Mr.  Browning 
at  a  small  luncheon  given  by  one  of  his  friends 
to  a  few  Americans.  In  the  early  days  of  my 
life  in  New  York  I  knew  the  painter  Cephas 
Thompson,  who  had  lived  as  neighbor  to  Mrs. 
Browning  in  Florence  and  painted  a  sketch  of 
her  which  he  once  showed  me;  he  had  also  given 
me  a  small  photograph  of  Mrs.  Browning  which 
she  had  given  him.  Now,  as  I  sat  opposite  the 
man  who  had  inspired  the  wonderful  "Sonnets 
from  the  Portuguese,"  I  mentally  placed  the  little 
photograph  beside  his  rugged  face  and  made  a 
pair  of  them  once  more.  Mrs.  Richie,  whom  my 
daughter  was  painting  at  that  time,  had  told 
Browning  of  Mr.  Richie's  proposition  to  read  a 
392 


ROBERT    BROWNING 

From  a  copyrighted  photograph  by  W.  H.  Grove,  174  Brompton  Road,  London 


A   SEASON    IN    LONDON 

poem  while  Dora  was  painting  Mrs.  Richie,  and 
of  her  refusal  to  hear  it,  saying  that  she  "did  not 
like  poetry."  He  persisted,  however,  in  reading 
"Saul,"  and  was  amply  justified  by  its  effect 
upon  the  audience  of  one. 

"But  I  thought  you  did  not  like  poetry !"  said  he. 

"Oh,  that  is  not  poetry!"  she  retorted;  "that 
is  great  literature!" 

It  seems  that  Browning  had  treasured  this, 
and  when  the  young  lady  in  question  was  placed 
next  him  at  the  table  he  turned  to  her,  saying: 

"So  you  do  not  think  'Saul'  is  poetry?" 

Of  course  she  hardly  knew  how  to  meet  this, 
much  to  the  amusement  of  Mr.  Browning. 

"Never  mind!"  said  he;  "I  am  perfectly  satis- 
fied with  your  classification  of  it." 

They  fell  into  discussion  of  spiritual  things  as 
connected  with  poetry,  and  Mr.  Browning  gave 
utterance  to  a  belief  which  was  doubly  interesting 
when  one  remembers  the  two  remarkable  souls 
whom  it  concerned. 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  "it  is  a  thing  entirely  of 
feeling  or  spiritual  consciousness,  but  I  am  often 
as  sure  of  my  wife's  presence  as  if  I  saw  her  with 
my  bodily  eyes." 

It  was  wonderfully  interesting  to  sit  opposite 
this  rather  heavy,  strong,  but  not  distinguished 
face  and  think  that  this  was  really  the  man 
whose  utterances  had  led  and  were  leading  the 
minds  of  the  world. 

393 


YESTERDAYS 

Cephas  Thompson  had  also  painted  Hawthorne's 
beautiful,  serious  face  in  Rome.  Long  afterward  I 
saw  the  portrait  hanging  in  the  house  belonging  to 
Mrs.  William  Osborne  on  Park  Avenue,  and  felt 
that  it  held  something  of  the  mystery  and  power 
of  Hawthorne. 

During  this  season  Dora  had  a  commission  to 
paint  certain  English  portraits  in  London  for  pub- 
lication, and  this  brought  us  into  delightful  ac- 
quaintance with  Thackeray's  daughter,  Mrs. 
Richie — now  Lady  Richie — to  whom  we  had  also 
private  letters  of  introduction.  The  portrait  was 
painted  at  Mrs.  Richie's  own  house,  or  rather 
in  her  garden  (for  there  are  really  gardens  in 
London),  and  afternoon  sittings  were  an  unmiti- 
gated pleasure.  Mrs.  Richie  talked  very  much 
of  her  father,  and  afterward  showed  us  the  manu- 
script of  some  of  the  books  illustrated  with  his 
own  drawings.  They  were  not  remarkable  as 
drawings,  but  delightfully  illustrative  of  the  man's 
own  mind  about  his  own  scenes  and  imagined 
persons;  one  felt  how  real  they  must  have  been 
to  him  when  he  could  actually  see  and  draw  them. 
The  manuscripts  were  written  in  the  finest  and 
most  regular  script,  and  almost  without  erasure 
or  correction. 

Mrs.  Richie  herself  was  charming,  and  the  in- 
timate seeing  of  her,  as  wife,  mother,  and  friend, 
was  a  privilege.  She  was  not  beautiful,  but  good- 
looking  in  every  sense  of  the  word  with  every 
394 


A    SEASON    IN    LONDON 

quality  which  went  to  make  up  an  almost  perfect 
personality. 

Afterward  came  the  painting  of  Thomas  Hardy. 
We  found  the  Hardys  living  almost  across  the 
way  from  our  lodgings  in  Russell  Square,  so  the 
sittings  assumed  quite  a  neighborly  aspect;  so 
far,  that  is,  as  Mrs.  Hardy  was  concerned.  Mr. 
Hardy  himself  was  rather  a  withdrawn  man;  it 
was  only  at  the  second  sitting  that  he  came  out 
of  the  little  inner  place  of  consciousness  where  he 
lived,  and  where  the  latch-string  certainly  was 
not  out.  But  after  the  first  few  hours  gleams  of 
tolerance  and  interest,  occasionally  even  eager- 
ness, would  dart  from  his  eyes,  and,  in  a  hesitating 
way,  from  his  lips;  and  these  gleams  were  finally 
recurrent  as  he  unexpectedly  became  interested 
in  having  my  daughter  paint  Walter  Besant.  He 
had  not  been  on  the  publisher's  list,  but  he  was  a 
real  celebrity,  and  therefore  interesting,  and  the 
artist  was  nothing  loath.  It  seemed  he  was  a 
townsman  or  townsboy  of  Mr.  Hardy,  as  they 
had  been  youths  together,  and  Mr.  Hardy  was 
quite  eager  about  the  matter  of  his  portrait, 
offering  a  letter  of  introduction  and  a  personal 
explanation. 

"But  perhaps  Mr.  Besant  will  not  want  to  be 
painted,"  said  the  artist. 

"I  think  he  will,"  said  Mr.  Hardy.  "You — 
you — have  a  way  with  you." 

And  then  Dora  and  I  looked  at  each  other  and 
39S 


YESTERDAYS 

said  with  our  eyes,  "How  could  he  know  about 
'the  way '  if  he  did  not  see  it  ?"  But  in  Mr.  Hardy's 
mind  the  thing  was  evidently  clear,  so  the  letter 
was  written,  and  the  sitting  arranged  for,  and 
that  was  how  we  came  to  know  Walter  Besant. 

Mr.  Hardy's  own  personality  is  very  inter- 
esting. Physically  he  is  not  large,  and  he  shuts 
in  the  large  inner  man  so  closely  that  you  can 
only  be  mentally  sure  of  his  bigness.  His  eyes 
are  soft  and  shy,  and  his  speech  a  little  hesitating, 
and  the  effect  of  the  two  together  made  us  wonder 
whether  shyness  or  defense  kept  the  door.  He  set 
us  right  about  the  pronunciation  of  Mr.  Besant's 
name,  saying  that  we  were  wrong  in  putting  the 
accent  on  the  last  syllable;  it  was  Besant  instead 
of  Besant,  adding  with  a  trace  of  malice,  that 
"that,  at  least,  was  the  way  it  was  pronounced 
where  the  Besants  came  from." 

Mrs.  Hardy  was  tall  and  fair  and  friendly. 
Friendly  to  us,  and  motherly  and  protective 
toward  her  husband.  When  she  came  to  us  for 
afternoon  tea  she  was  almost  voluble  about  him 
and  herself,  and  plainly  curious  about  our  iced 
tea,  which  she  thought  "must  be  very  expensive." 
Just  that  one  little  remark  illustrated  and  indi- 
cated the  small  differences  between  home  and 
London,  or  between  English  and  American  habits. 

Mr.  Besant  came  to  us  for  his  sittings.  He 
was  large  in  person,  blond  in  coloring,  very  friend- 
ly and  interesting.  He  told  us  about  Toynbee 
396 


A    SEASON    IN    LONDON 

Hall,  and  how  it  came  to  be,  and  offered  to  take 
us  to  see  it,  volunteering  the  assurance  that,  being 
thus  introduced,  we  should  not  be  slammed.  When 
we  wondered,  almost  incredulously,  at  this  danger, 
he  informed  us  that  a  lady  who  had  ventured 
there  alone  was  knocked  down  and  stamped  on; 
and  this  glimpse  of  the  brutality  of  a  lower-class 
English  crowd  made  a  visit  to  Toynbee  Hall  seem 
uninviting. 

Mr.  Besant  was  very  enthusiastic  about  Mr. 
Hardy's  work.  He  thought  him  as  a  novelist 
"second  to  no  living  man."  This  was  very  in- 
teresting from  a  brother  novelist.  Mr.  Besant's 
looks  and  ways  were  delightful  and  ingratiating, 
hearty,  wholesome,  and  kind;  one  would  say  he 
was  exactly  the  man  to  incite  and  lead  a  new 
philanthropic  enterprise.  His  portrait  went  on 
rapidly  and  was  successful — so  lifelike,  in  fact, 
that  in  thinking  of  its  fate — for  these  three  por- 
traits, Mrs.  Richie's,  Thomas  Hardy's,  and  Walter 
Besant's,  were  never  recovered  from  the  steam- 
ship to  which  they  were  consigned — I  can  easily 
fancy  Mr.  Besant's  face  looking  down  from  the 
wall  of  some  Scandinavian  farm-house  in  our  own 
far  West,  advising  and  criticizing  the  family,  and 
even  reproaching  them  for  having  absorbed  the 
packing-box  which  contained  him  and  his  com- 
panions and  carrying  it  off  with  their  own  luggage. 

So  it  happens  that — so  far  as  material  proof 
even  to  ourselves  is  concerned — our  contact  with 
397 


YESTERDAYS 

these  three  human  personalities  might  be  only 
a  dream,  vivid  and  circumstantial  and  delightful 
as  dreams  sometimes  are,  but  incapable  of  sub- 
stantiation. 

I  append  one  of  Mr.  Lowell's  friendly  notes: 

40  Clarges  Street, 

PICCADILLY,    W. 

June  i,  1886. 

DEAR  Miss  WHEELER, — You  have  my  entire  permission 
to  refer  to  me  as  often  as  you  like — provided  it  be  in  flatter- 
ing terms.  There  will  be  no  need  of  my  bearing  witness  that 
you  are  all  that  is  most  charming — for  you  can  convince  them 
of  that  without  difficulty.  In  short,  let  me  be  of  service  to 
you  in  any  way,  Miss  Dora  Wheeler,  that  I  can  and  I  shall 
be  only  too  glad. 

With  kindest  regards  to  your  mother, 
Faithfully  yours, 

J.  A.  LOWELL. 


XV 

A   SUMMER   IN    "BROADWAY" 

WHEN  the  painting  of  portraits  was  finished 
and  there  remained  three  months  before  we 
must  sail  for  New  York,  we  decided  to  spend 
it  in  the  lovely  old  village  of  Broadway,  where  the 
Millets  had  been  established  for  several  years, 
and  where  other  friends  from  home  had  taken 
rooms  at  the  "Lyggon  Arms"  for  the  summer. 

Mr.  Millet  had  leased  a  comfortable  English 
country  place  during  the  time  that  the  old  mon- 
astery which  he  had  bought  was  being  rebuilt  to 
fit  the  needs  of  an  American  family.  The  long- 
dead  monks,  who  lie  somewhere  in  lost  conse- 
crated ground,  would  have  been  horrified  at  the 
advent  of  these  new  people  from  a  land  of  sav- 
ages; and  if  their  ghosts  ever  revisit  it,  and  wander 
hungrily  into  the  great  refectory — the  proportions 
of  which  suggest  vastness  of  appetites  as  well  as 
of  numbers — and  are  in  such  contrast  to  the  little 
cells  of  solitude — how  they  must  long  to  enter 
upon  the  work  of  conversion,  sharing  the  while 
the  warmth  and  creature  comforts  the  savages 
399 


YESTERDAYS 

have  introduced.  For  my  own  part,  I  cannot  even 
fancy  the  Millets  being  converted  to  anything 
without  a  mental  shudder,  they  are  so  eminently 
satisfactory  just  as  they  are!  Perfect  human 
magnets,  drawing  to  them  other  delightful  and 
irresistible  painting  and  writing  people,  both  Eng- 
lish and  American,  with  whom  it  is  good  to  be. 

In  the  "Lyggon  Arms  "  were  just  the  few  friends 
whom  we  have  selected  from  the  hundred  mill- 
ions of  souls  in  our  beloved  land,  for  both  pleas- 
urable and  profitable  companionship.  The  party 
included  the  Samuel  Cabots,  of  Boston,  the  painter 
Edwin  Blashfield  and  his  lovely  wife,  the  R.  U. 
Johnsons,  and  that  live  spark  of  a  woman,  Mary 
Mapes  Dodge. 

The  inn  was  venerable,  but  comfortable,  in 
spite  of  narrow  halls  and  uneven  floors,  where  the 
knots  of  old  oak  plants  stood  up  in  hillocks  and 
the  straight  grain  of  them  ran  in  narrow  valleys, 
the  fiber  having  been  kicked  into  dust  by  century- 
dead  English  feet.  It  was  all  so  old  that  it  was 
new  and  gave  even  the  impression  of  originality. 
When  a  little  glass  window  was  dug  out  of  a 
thick  outside  wall,  to  brighten  the  darkness  of 
a  closet,  we  were  as  excited  as  if  we  had  come  upon 
a  "private  hoard."  It  had  been  plastered  up 
years  ago  to  avoid  the  "window  tax"  which 
Cobbett  inveighs  against  in  his  rare  old  book, 
Cottage  Economy,  in  the  chapter  teaching  cot- 
tagers how  to  manufacture  "rush  lights." 
400 


A    SUMMER    IN    "BROADWAY" 

I  knew  my  Cobbett,  for  it  was  one  of  the  few 
books  outside  of  the  Bible  and  religious  literature 
allowed  us  when  I  was  a  child.  Thanks  to  Cob- 
bett, I  knew  all  about  window  taxes  and  the 
various  sorts  of  taxes  which  made  the  heart  of 
that  lover  of  people  burn  within  him  in  the  days 
when  the  masses  had  no  share  in  lawmaking. 
And  the  modern  taxing  system  was  one  of  the 
underlying,  half-hidden  differences  which  made 
England  new  to  us.  So  many  little  differences! 
The  tax  on  the  luxury  of  man-servants,  on  chro- 
nometers, on  family  seals  for  watch-chains,  on 
"spring  vehicles" — these  individual  taxes,  allowed 
by  the  people  because  they  aimed  at  the  rich  in- 
stead of  the  poor,  were  so  new  to  us ;  they  pointed 
backward  to  days  of  small  oppressions  which  ex- 
isted before  America  was  born  and  which  were  per- 
haps partly  responsible  for  its  separate  existence. 

The  broad,  green  street  which  stretched  itself 
in  front  of  the  inn  was  so  regardless  of  limit  as  to 
be  almost  a  square,  and  the  space  immediately 
in  front  was  littered  with  venerable  oaken  chairs 
and  a  dozen  or  more  of  tall  jet-black  greyhounds, 
whose  air  of  at-homeness  suggested  that  they 
might  be  half-human,  four-legged  patrons  of  the 
house  left  over  from  its  earlier  history.  The  oc- 
casional rustic  occupants  of  the  chairs,  who  re- 
garded us  ruminantly,  added  to  the  dreaminess 
of  effect  which  dominated  us;  and  at  night  the 
whining  and  wow-wowing  of  the  pack  of  hounds 

26  401 


YESTERDAYS 

in  the  quarters  across  the  broad  waste  of  street, 
and  the  baby  clamor  of  the  puppy  hounds,  car- 
ried the  dream  along.  We  fairly  groped,  in  the 
ancient  atmosphere  of  the  inn,  and  felt  a  faint 
shock  of  surprise  at  the  presence  of  friends  at 
the  table  in  the  little  breakfast-parlor  devoted  to 
"foreigners."  Also  the  sight  of  a  little  American 
boy  "cavorting  around"  and  claiming  the  earth 
was  decidedly  incongruous.  He  happened  to  be 
the  future  Owen  Johnson,  novelist,  and  at  this 
moment  I  am  holding  my  breath  to  remember  that 
I  advised  his  mother  to  chastise  this  coming  celeb- 
rity, on  the  one  or  two  occasions  which  seemed  to 
call  for  it.  The  pressure  of  the  dream  made  us 
of  the  elder  generation  walk  softly,  but  this  bud 
of  promise  apparently  did  not  feel  it. 

The  Old  World  effect  of  Broadway  was  intensi- 
fied when  I  wandered  through  it  with  Mr.  Millet, 
visiting  the  old,  old  church  and  its  stone-walled 
inclosure,  which  was  fairly  bursting  with  graves. 
I  fancied  some  of  them  must  open  and  let  out 
some  later  tenant,  who  would  go  complaining  up 
and  down  the  streets  at  the  insufficiency  of  the 
space  allowed  him.  It  was  like  an  incident  in  a 
dream  to  remember  the  reticent  quiet  of  old 
"Bonaventure"  in  far-off  Savannah,  with  its 
decency  of  repose  and  its  gray  and  pendulous 
veils  of  moss  waving  from  the  outstretched  arms 
of  the  live-oaks.  A  too  populous  graveyard  is 
not  to  my  liking! 

402 


A    SUMMER    IN    "BROADWAY' 

Broadway  became  like  an  illustrated  "article" 
in  some  magazine  when  I  saw  old  men  and  women 
sitting  in  "ingle-nooks,"  and  cottages  with  tiled 
roofs  and  bits  of  sculptured  stone,  filched  from 
some  time-ruined  castle,  built  into  their  plas- 
tered outer  walls. 

Mr.  Millet  was  evidently  a  welcome  visitor  in 
these  cottages;  he  had  painted  every  picturesque 
bit  of  house  or  humanity.  He  was  a  part  of  their 
daily  lives,  a  kindly  and  beneficent  part  of  it,  and 
we  were  accepted  as  his  friends.  Every  laborer  re- 
turning from  his  day's  work,  with  a  handkerchief 
full  of  freshly  gathered  field  mushrooms  hanging 
from  his  wrist,  greeted  him  with  friendly  respect. 

The  undulating  country  was  green  with  past- 
ures or  yellow  with  wheat,  the  heavy  crops  bi- 
sected by  sharply  cut,  foot-wide,  "right-of-way" 
parts,  so  niggardly  in  width  as  to  challenge  their 
own  existence.  This  again  was  a  little  compromise 
between  ancient  and  modern  life.  The  paths 
existed — they  were  "rights,"  and  no  great  lord 
could  gainsay  them — but  they  were,  oh,  so  narrow! 

This  was  old,  old  England,  but  the  atmosphere 
was  sharply  changed  when  we  entered  the  Millet 
gate  in  the  afternoon,  found  pretty  Mrs.  Millet 
waiting  at  her  garden  tea-table,  and  joined  the 
group  of  friends.  They  were  sipping  tea,  and  look- 
ing over  one  another's  sketches,  and  discussing 
them,  full  of  the  alertness  of  creative  art.  Even 
the  young  London  model,  discreetly  withdrawn 
403 


YESTERDAYS 

into  the  summer-house  with  her  cup  of  tea,  was 
not  out  of  keeping  with  a  painter's  summer  estab- 
lishment in  America.  There  was  always  a  notable 
convocation  of  painters  and  people  who  "do 
things, ' '  in  the  Millet  house,  of  an  afternoon.  They 
were  Abbey,  and  Alfred  Parsons,  and  Sargent,  and 
Blashfield,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alma  Tadema  and 
their  daughter — all  painters — down  from  London 
for  a  week-end  holiday;  and  the  many-gifted  host 
himself,  painter  and  writer  and  man  of  affairs  and 
man  of  men.  Who  among  his  gifted  and  brilliant 
friends  touched  so  many  of  the  keys  of  life? 

Sometimes  Madam  Navarro  drove  over  to 
afternoon  tea  and  bestowed  her  loveliness  upon 
this  most  appreciative  group,  and  those  were  star 
occasions.  To  be  "the  most  beautiful"  rarely 
happens  among  women,  but  when  Mary  Anderson 
grew  into  womanhood  —  line  and  contour  and 
movement  and  illumination  all  combined  to  that 
end — just  to  look  at  her  was  an  exciting  pleasure. 
How  delightful  are  human  beings  when  one  can 
pick  and  choose  among  them ! 

I  remember,  too,  the  evenings  spent  in  the 
opening,  studying  moonlight  and  lamplight  effects 
among  the  enormous  poppies  which  were  in  blos- 
som in  the  garden,  each  one  like  a  flower-moon 
upon  a  poppy  stalk.  Sargent  painted  it — a  picture 
of  shadows,  and  illuminations  of  color,  with  the 
Millet  children  wandering  among  the  poppy- 
heads  carrying  lanterns — and  to-day  it  is  to  be 
404 


A    SUMMER    IN    "BROADWAY" 

seen  in  the  Tate  Gallery  in  London.  Everybody 
painted  that  garden,  but  I  especially  remember 
Sargent's,  not  only  for  its  extraordinary  color, 
but  also  because  it  was  permanently  placed  and 
one  could  always  see  it. 

There  were  occasional  dances  in  the  studio,  and 
if  you  were  of  the  inner  circle  you  might  see  these 
boys  at  play.  I  remember  one  evening  when 
Tadema  introduced  what  he  called  "the  hat 
dance."  As  a  preliminary,  every  one  fitted  him- 
self or  herself  out  with  one  of  the  costumes — 
and  they  were  of  all  periods — which  hung  in  a 
line  around  the  studio  walls.  When  all  were  ready 
a  large  old  hat  which  had  belonged  to  some  preb- 
endary of  previous  centuries  was  laid  upon  the 
floor  in  the  center  of  the  room.  We  made  a  hand- 
joined  dancing-ring  around  it,  and  Sargent  played 
for  the  circle,  which  danced  across  and  across  the 
breadth,  and  up  and  down  the  length,  of  the 
room.  The  game  was  to  avoid  touching  or  mis- 
placing the  hat.  Of  course  this  led  to  all  sorts 
of  leaps  and  springs,  very  amusing  and  not  so 
difficult  for  the  men,  but  impossible  to  skirts; 
and  upon  our  remonstrance,  Mr.  Tadema  put  him- 
self in  a  woman's  costume  to  show  us  how  easily 
it  could  be  done.  As  he  gathered  it  together, 
and  his  short,  rather  stout  figure  leaped  the  ob- 
stacle, it  was  the  most  ludicrous  and  fun-provoking 
spectacle,  and  so  we  danced  and  laughed  long 
into  the  summer  night. 

405 


YESTERDAYS 

Mrs.  Tadema  was  a  cream-colored  beauty, 
truly  a  beauty.  With  a  bunch  of  tea-roses  at  her 
throat,  she  was  just  another  one  of  their  kind. 

Mr.  Tadema,  like  most  figure-painters,  was  a 
color  fanatic  about  textiles,  and  I  showed  him 
some  of  the  combined  color  and  design  experi- 
ments which  the  Cheney  silk-manufacturers  made 
for  ' '  The  Associated  Artists ' '  of  New  York.  They 
were  lengths  of  what  we  had  named  "shadow 
silks,"  for  the  design  ran  constantly  into  iridescent 
changes  of  color,  and  they  appeared  in  light  and 
shadow  where  the  line  of  form  was  plainly  visible, 
or  disappeared  with  every  change  of  light.  He 
was  quite  as  enthusiastic  about  these  new  weav- 
ings  as  I  could  wish,  and  we  tried  them  on  Mrs. 
Tadema's  creamy  whiteness  with  great  effect.  The 
gold  and  gold-browns  of  her  eyes  and  hair  and 
her  creaminess  of  complexion  were  intensified  by 
the  changing  luster  of  the  textiles,  until  Mr. 
Tadema's  enthusiasm  called  together  the  color- 
loving  circle  of  painters,  who  showered  all  sorts 
of  rainbow  epithets  upon  the  lady  and  the 
weavings. 

It  is  interesting  to  look  back  to  that  time  and 
follow  along  the  line  of  development  of  each  of 
the  men  who  composed  the  group.  At  that  period 
the  school  of  mural  painting  had  no  existence  in 
America.  Abbey  was  a  prominent  and  successful 
illustrator,  and  had  achieved  for  himself  a  method 
which  distinguished  his  work  from  all  others.  A 
406 


A    SUMMER    IN    "BROADWAY" 

sure  expression  by  line  gave  his  drawings  some- 
thing of  the  character  of  etchings,  his  exhaustive 
study  of  periods  of  costume  and  interior  archi- 
tecture, added  to  an  almost  instinctive  knowl- 
edge of  the  bodily  and  facial  expression  of  human 
emotion,  made  them  permanently  valuable.  I 
have  sometimes  wondered  if  he  saw  himself  at 
that  period  the  great  decorative  painter  which  he 
afterward  became.  Did  the  enormous  spread  of 
color  and  composition  which  appears  on  the  walls 
of  the  Boston  Library  foreshadow  itself  to  him 
on  the  small  pages  of  his  block  of  drawing-paper 
as  he  composed  and  elaborated  his  Shakespearian 
illustrations?  Yes,  I  wonder. 

I  have  wondered  also  whether  Edwin  Blashfield 
foresaw  at  that  time  his  own  great  ability  to  paint 
dreams  of  color  and  idealize  dramas  of  American 
history  for  the  walls  of  national  and  state  build- 
ings; or  if  that  beloved  of  men,  Frank  Millet, 
found  the  seed  of  his  beautiful  decorations  in 
Baltimore  in  the  small  interior  scenes  of  English 
life  he  was  painting  in  that  delectable  village  of 
England.  Sargent  alone  seems  to  have  had  the 
future  well  open  in  his  hand.  His  mastery  of  in- 
terpretation and  representation  of  humanity  was 
as  broad  and  complete  in  every  portrait  he  painted 
as  in  the  solemn  figures  of  the  prophets  which 
illuminate  the  Library  of  our  classic  city. 

The  evolution  of  art  into  the  larger  aspect  of 
mural  painting  was  in  the  near  future.  The  idea 
407 


YESTERDAYS 

had  its  American  birth  in  the  ambitious  hour  of 
1893  when  Chicago  determined  to  outdo  every 
previous  exposition  in  any  country;  to  accomplish 
this  was  to  give  art  an  opportunity  of  expression 
in  all  of  its  forms.  When  mural  painting  was 
called  for,  no  one  of  our  painters  had  actually 
practised  it,  but  their  study  had  included  the 
achievements  of  the  Old  World  and  of  the  im- 
mortal painters  who  covered  ceilings  and  walls 
of  the  cathedrals  and  palaces  of  Rome,  Florence, 
and  Venice  with  the  frescoes  which  are  the  heritage 
of  to-day,  as  the  best  of  our  work  of  to-day  will 
be  the  heritage  of  to-morrow  and  succeeding  to- 
morrows. 

Our  summer  in  Broadway  was  a  happy  con- 
clusion to  the  season  in  London — the  painting  of 
some  of  the  literary  celebrities  of  the  period,  and 
the  visits  to  the  studios  of  London  painters.  We 
knew  the  history  and  minds  of  the  painters  in 
Broadway.  They  were  brothers  in  the  sense  of 
being  of  the  same  race,  and  we  were  rich  in  the 
pride  and  joy  of  it.  We  had  appreciated  a  near 
view  of  the  creators  of  English  art  and  letters,  but 
we  had  not  known  their  lives  and  the  influences 
which  gave  their  work  character  and  color,  as  we 
did  those  of  our  own  painters.  We  had  neither 
been  born  nor  invited  into  the  mental  labora- 
tories where  these  influences  were  mixed,  but  all 
the  same  it  was  a  privilege  to  see  the  miracle  of 
creation  even  as  we  looked.  This  was  the  sum- 
408 


A    SUMMER    IN    ''BROADWAY' 

ming  up  of  the  summer  as  we  came  sailing  home- 
ward, every  day  bringing  us  nearer  to  the  land 
of  our  birth  and  the  country  of  our  love,  and  I 
left  it  in  Mrs.  Millet's  visitors'  book. 

To  a  summer  that  draws  to  its  close 
Full  of  joys  as  a  full-hearted  rose 

Is  of  leaves. 
Days  fall  softly  apart 
Like  leaves  from  rose-heart 

Each  fragrant  of  that  it  bereaves. 

When  we  left  Broadway  Mr.  Abbey  told  us  he 
had  given  Mr.  James  Osgood,  of  Boston,  a  letter 
of  introduction  to  us.  As  we  already  knew  him 
to  be  a  friend  of  many  of  our  preferred  friends, 
we  lost  no  time,  with  his  apparent  acquiescence, 
in  getting  in  touch  with  him.  He  was  a  charming 
man;  spontaneously  sympathetic,  generous  of 
judgment  to  all  human  idiosyncrasies,  and  broad- 
ly awake  to  the  superiority  of  certain  favorites  of 
the  gods  whom  we,  too,  loved.  As  to  his  kindly 
attentions,  he  fully  justified  Mr.  Abbey's  letter, 
and  we  fell  into  a  real  and  satisfactory  friendship. 
I  append  the  Abbey  letter. 

RUSSELL  HOUSE, 
BROADWAY, 

WORCESTERSHIRE, 

Wednesday. 

DEAR  MRS.  WHEELER,— This  will  be  handed  you  by  a 
very  dear  friend  of  mine,  Mr.  James  A.  Osgood,  whom  I  am 
sure  you  will  find  a  very  pleasant  young  man  to  cross  the 
409 


YESTERDAYS 

ocean  with.    He  carries  shawls  and  wraps  very  well,  and  is 
very  clever  at  weeding  out  steamer  chairs. 

Will  you  kindly  remember  me  to  Miss  Wheeler  and  Miss 
Stimpson,  and  believe  me  to  be, 

Very  faithfully  yours, 

EDWIN  A.  ABBEY. 


There  was  another  happening  of  the  voyage, 
which  had  the  charm  of  novelty,  since  the  sub- 
ject of  it  was  an  Englishman  who  proved  to  belong 
to  that  variety  of  humanity  whom  we  always  in- 
stinctively select  as  friends — the  broad-minded, 
kind-hearted,  clever-thoughted,  good  people.  I 
saw  him  striding  up  and  down  the  deck,  during 
the  first  days  of  our  voyage,  and  noticed  him 
simply  as  an  agreeable  specimen  of  the  traveling 
Englishman — large  and  healthy  and  somewhat 
rustic-looking;  and  then  I  saw  him  take  a  fretful 
child  of  about  two  years  of  age  from  the  arms 
of  a  pale,  seasick  nurse.  He  simply  picked  up 
the  child  and  strode  on,  up  and  down  the  long 
deck,  talking  to  it  cheerfully,  until  the  companion- 
ship evidently  became  a  pleasure  to  both;  then, 
after  a  good  half -hour  of  cheery  transportation, 
he  returned  the  unwilling  child  to  the  wretched 
nurse.  After  another  half-hour  of  tramp  he 
dropped  into  a  sea-chair  near  me  and  fumbled  in 
his  pocket  for  a  book.  Somehow  the  sight  of  it 
was  encouraging,  and  I  spoke: 

"It  was  awfully  good  of  you  to  take  that  child 
and  walk  with  it,"  I  said. 
410 


A    SUMMER    IN    "BROADWAY" 

He  turned  a  rugged,  blue-eyed  face  toward  me. 

"The  nurse  hasn't  got  her  sea  legs  on,"  said  he, 
"and  she  is  a  poor  thing!" 

That  was  the  beginning.  He  turned  the  cover 
of  the  book  toward  me  and  asked  me  if  I  had  seen 
it.  Fortunately  I  had.  It  was  a  newly  published 
volume  of  Henly's  poems,  and  we  talked  about  it. 
He  was  a  mine  of  pleasant  information,  all  of  it 
tinged  with  enthusiasm.  He  talked  of  books  and 
travel  and  ships,  and  the  travel  was  largely  colored 
with  voyaging;  I  reflected  that  an  Englishman 
had  to  go  everywhere  by  water.  After  our  chat 
was  ended,  and  Dora  and  Mr.  Osgood,  who  had 
been  tramping  the  deck,  returned  to  sit  with  me, 
Mr.  Osgood  asked: 

"Do  you  know  the  name  of  your  English 
friend?" 

"No,  but  he  is  an  awfully  interesting  man.  Do 
you  know?" 

"Lord  Brassey." 

"Lord  Brassey  of  the  Sunbeam?" 

"The  same." 

"Goodness!"  said  I.  "I  feel  like  going  and 
thanking  him  for  talking  to  me!  There  are  end- 
less things  I  am  going  to  find  out — whether  Lady 
Brassey  wrote  The  Voyage  of  the  Sunbeam  while 
they  were  actually  at  sea,  and  just  where  and  how 
she  got  the  great  scarlet  cloak  of  feather- work  which 
is  in  the  museum  at  Manchester,  and  all  about 
everything.  And  do  you  know,  he  is  booky!" 
411 


YESTERDAYS 

"Good!"  said  Mr.  Osgood.  "That  is  where  I 
come  in." 

The  acquaintance  progressed  very  satisfactorily. 
We  found  that  he  knew  the  Crosby  Browns,  and 
his  opinion  of  them  coincided  exactly  with  ours. 
He  knew  the  rose-garden  at  Orange,  and  the  dear 
and  hospitable  "Brighthurst,"  and  I  told  him 
beautiful  stories  of  the  parents  of  both  of  these 
dear  friends,  of  the  father  and  mother  Brown  so 
simple  and  high-thoughted,  and  of  the  maternal 
father  and  mother,  the  Reverend  Doctor  Adams 
and  his  wife,  the  two  most  beautiful  old  people 
I  had  ever  seen.  We  agreed  that  children  with 
two  such  generations  behind  them  should  and 
probably  would  be  a  heritage  of  value  to  the 
world;  and  I  must  stop  talking  about  Lord  Brassey 
long  enough  to  say  that  they  are  and  have  been. 

Here  was  good,  safe  ground  for  the  beginning 
of  an  acquaintance  which  lasted  long  after  the 
voyage  of  the  Germanic.  Lady  Brassey  sent  us 
a  copy  of  her  book  and  her  photograph,  and  the 
letters  which  brought  them  had  the  engraved 
heading  of  "The  Sunbeam";  so  the  letters  and 
pictures  became  part  of  the  record  of  a  happy 
summer.  Here  is  one  of  them: 

Address  NORMANHURST  COURT 

BATTLE,  SUSSEX. 
Sunbeam  R.  Y.  5.,  28th  Sept. 

DEAR  Miss  WHEELER, — After  a  rapid  passage,  I  landed 
in  Liverpool  yesterday  morning.    At  sea  I  read  some  things 
412 


A    SUMMER    IN    "BROADWAY" 

of  Shelley's.  I  send  two  extracts.  Possibly  they  may  be 
appropriate  to  the  picture  which  I  saw  on  your  easel,  and 
which  the  custode  told  me  you  had  commenced  since  your 
return  home. 

I  write  from  Shrewsbury.  This  afternoon  I  meet  my  wife 
on  the  Sunbeam  at  Southampton.  I  shall  have  many  things 
to  tell  her,  and  nothing  will  interest  her  so  much  as  the  de- 
scriptions I  shall  give  of  one  or  two  charming  and  kind 
people  whom  I  met  on  board  the  Germanic.  It  would  be  nice 
for  you  to  send  photographs  of  your  father,  mother,  and  your- 
self to  my  wife.  With  every  good  wish, 
Always  very  sincerely  yours, 

BRASSEY. 

Remember  me  most  particularly  to  your  parents. 


My  days  in  London  were  not  entirely  concerned 
with  living  authors  and  artists,  enticing  as  they 
were,  for  London  is  peopled  with  the  great  per- 
sonalities who  speak  through  their  works.  The 
bodily  voice  so  inadequate  as  an  interpreter  of 
the  highest  inspiration  had  long  been  stilled,  and 
the  obedient  hands  which  wielded  the  painter's 
brush  or  the  sculptor's  chisel  or  the  pen  of  power 
are  crumbled  into  dust,  but  the  incomparable 
thought  which  guided  them  still  soars  and  sings. 
I  felt  their  great  utterances  as  I  sat  in  the  mu- 
seums where  they  abode,  in  the  places  where  are 
gathered  the  great  of  the  human  society  of  ^  the 
centuries.  I  used  to  wonder  if  these  crystallized 
aspirations  had  a  voice  for  one  another,  a  language 
which  is  eternal  and  which  can  answer  the  one  to 
the  other.  To  be  in  these  places  in  our  own  small 


YESTERDAYS 

temporary  bodies  is  to  resemble  children  looking 
through  a  window  at  some  great  scene  of  high 
society.  I  had  many  such  thoughts  as  I  sat 
among  them  day  by  day  and  tried  to  listen  humbly 
with  my  human  understanding.  When  I  read  of 
picture  auctions  where  astonishing  sums  of  money 
are  exchanged  for  the  possession  of  some  perfect 
expressions  of  master-thought,  I  realize  that  the 
value  exchanged  is  adequate — not  as  money,  but 
as  the  reach  of  an  appreciative  soul  toward 
something  far  above,  toward  the  highest.  My 
study  in  the  Museum  of  London  seemed  to  de- 
velop along  the  form  of  artistic  thought  embodied 
in  tapestries,  and  finally  to  center  upon  Raphael's 
"Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes."  I  had  always 
loved  it,  perhaps  because  it  was  a  frontispiece 
of  the  old  Bible  from  which  we  read  at  family 
prayers  when  I  was  a  child  (I  can  see  the  old  wood- 
cut now,  the  brown  paper,  and  the  coarse  black 
lines  of  it),  and  when  I  saw  the  cartoon  which 
was  the  master's  own,  the  full-size  cartoon  which 
hangs  in  one  of  the  British  galleries,  I  was  never 
tired  of  studying  it  and  the  tapestry  woven  from 
it.  I  realized  that  the  cartoon  was  an  enlarged 
copy  made  from  the  original  sketch,  but  I  could 
fancy  it  made  in  Raphael's  own  studio,  by  his  own 
pupils,  under  his  very  eyes,  and  guided  by  his 
voice.  An  audacious  thought  of  following  his 
thought  in  a  new  creation  was  born  into  my  mind 
and  I  mothered  it.  I  had  two  large  photographs 
414 


A   SUMMER   IN    "BROADWAY" 

made  from  the  cartoon,  and  I  copied  one  of  them 
in  water-color,  following  the  original  in  devotion 
and  humility  of  spirit.  When  it  was  done  I  was 
satisfied  with  it,  and,  hugging  my  project,  I  laid 
both  securely  away  under  my  best  dresses  in  the 
bottom  tray  of  my  trunk. 


XVI 

POSTLUDE 

TN  spite  of  the  fascinations  of  travel,  I  found 
*  myself,  even  during  the  voyage  homeward, 
eager  to  begin  new  experiments  in  textiles,  and 
to  be  back  in  the  home  and  studio,  where  so  many 
of  our  interests  centered.  Ideas  suggested  by  the 
study  of  the  creations  of  all  periods  and  races 
were  bubbling  in  my  mind  and  demanded  trial. 
Threads  of  cotton  and  wool  and  silk,  with  their 
myriad  possibilities  of  expression,  haunted  me 
like  attenuated  ghosts.  To  invest  fibers,  of  what- 
ever origin,  with  the  bliss  of  color  and  subject 
them  to  the  magic  of  machinery  and  the  manipu- 
lations of  living  fingers  became  a  constant  and 
insistent  challenge  to  my  powers  of  invention  and 
co-ordination. 

The  fact  of  being  in  some  sort  a  pioneer  of 
textile  art  in  America  gave  impulse  to  my  activi- 
ties; so  I  plunged  anew  into  the  work  of  design- 
ing, and  of  teaching  and  preaching  to  my  willing 
band  of  coadjutors ;  I  was  happy  with  the  creator's 
happiness,  that  little  shred  of  direct  inheritance 
416 


POSTLUDE 

from  the  great  Creator  who  surveyed  His  work 
and  found  it  good. 

Twice  a  month  I  lectured  to  the  classes  of  the 
"Artist  Artisans,"  gave  occasional  talks  to  the 
girl  pupils  of  the  Cooper  Institute,  and  constantly 
wrote  upon  the  subjects  of  industrial  efforts  for 
women  of  farm-houses,  trying  to  invest  their  work 
with  the  charm  of  improvement.  I  wrote  a  little 
book  upon  Farm-house  Industries  and  Domestic 
Weavings,  and  a  more  important  one  upon  The 
Principles  of  Decoration,  which  was  intended  for 
art  students.  I  studied  home  dyeing  and  weav- 
ing, and  was  greatly  pleased  to  find  that  the 
indigo  dyes  and  plantation  weaving,  which  had 
originated  one  of  the  most  reliable  cotton  fabrics 
in  the  whole  history  of  manufacture,  still  existed. 
This  fabric,  known  as  "Kentucky  jean,"  "blue 
jean,"  and  afterward  as  "blue  denim,"  came  into 
quite  prominent  use  for  the  furnishing  of  yachts 
and  for  domestic  purposes  requiring  strength  and 
endurance  as  well  as  beauty.  We  found  it  possible 
to  extract  its  blue  in  lines  of  design,  and  some  of 
our  best  patterns  were  devoted  to  this  purpose. 
One  of  these,  known  as  "the  fish  design,"  where 
large  and  smaller  fish  were  moving  in  circling 
lines  of  water  and  globules  of  spray,  was  a  favorite 
with  architects  and  decorators.  To  my  joy  and 
pride,  it  was  pronounced  by  Mr.  Drake,  who 
governed  the  renaissance  of  wood-engraving  in- 
augurated by  the  Century  magazine,  "the  best 
27  417 


YESTERDAYS 

manufacturing  design  ever  made  out  of  Japan." 
I  know  it  was  used  as  an  argument  in  the  plea 
for  a  free-art  tariff,  because  this  application  of 
good  art  to  a  very  meritorious  cotton  enhanced 
its  value  to  ten  times  the  original  cost. 

My  efforts  toward  promoting  the  growth  of 
manufacturing  design  were  greatly  aided  by  the 
publication  in  Harper's  Weekly  of  full-page  de- 
signs for  embroidery,  with  comprehensive  notes, 
including  instructions  as  to  general  application 
of  color  to  material  as  well  as  to  method  and 
stitchery.  This,  of  course,  gave  a  certain  authority 
to  my  advice  and  made  it  much  more  effective. 
In  fact,  all  the  influences  which  at  this  period 
were  brought  to  bear  upon  the  art  of  embroidery 
— including  the  establishment  of  many  state  and 
city  "societies  of  decorative  art" — resulted  in  a 
school  of  American  embroidery  which  made  its 
place  in  the  needlework  art  of  the  world. 

I  was  able  to  judge  of  this  by  the  large  oppor- 
tunities of  the  Columbian  Fair,  where  the  best 
of  the  world's  needlework  was  brought  together. 
American  embroidery  had  held  its  own,  quite  in- 
disputably, in  all  the  tested  rules  and  qualities 
of  this  fascinating  art. 

In  the  course  of  my  investigations  in  home- 
dyeing  and  weaving  I  found  that  the  dyes  used 
in  our  Puritan  household  were  still  held  in  esteem. 
The  indigo,  the  madder,  the  butternut  yellow 
and  walnut  brown,  were  felt  to  be  the  most  re- 
418 


POSTLUDE 

liable  dyes  for  wool  or  cotton,  in  spite  of  the 
gradual  adoption  by  manufacturers  of  cheap 
chemical  dyes  "made  in  Germany."  Indeed,  I 
am  even  now  wondering  why  we  should  have 
become  dependent  upon  Germany  for  staple  dyes 
when  better  and  far  more  reliable  ones  could  be 
produced  in  our  own  country.  This  is  especially 
true  of  indigo,  the  king  of  all  dyes,  and  the  favorite 
associate  of  cotton.  Why  should  the  old  indigo- 
vats  be  allowed  to  go  to  dust  on  many  a  Southern 
plantation,  and  cotton  be.  clothed  with  an  un- 
reliable violet-blue  from  Germany?  Remember 
that  the  indigo  blue  only  grows  more  heaven  blue 
in  color  as  it  is  subjected  to  sun  and  soap. 

If  one  is  working  from  a  conviction,  it  is  pleasant 
to  be  assured  of  its  truth,  and  I  was  perhaps  un- 
reasonably pleased  at  a  letter  which  came  with 
a  small  rug  I  had  ordered  from  Maine,  and  which 
seemed  to  me  to  amply  justify  my  efforts  in  the 
direction  of  domestic  art. 

I  am  always  wide  awake  to  home-made  things, 
and,  having  seen  an  exceptionally  colored  and 
well-designed  rug  in  the  house  of  a  friend,  and 
learning  that  it  was  a  specialty  of  a  small  town 
where  she  had  spent  the  summer,  I  wrote  and  or- 
dered one  and  asked  questions  about  its  production. 

This  was  the  answer: 

DEAR  MRS.  WHEELER, — You  will  not  remember  me  under 
a  married  name,  but  I  was  one  of  the  pupils  to  whom  you 
419 


YESTERDAYS 

lectured  at  "The  Artist  Artisans,"  and  in  your  last  talk  to 
us  you  said:  "When  you  go  home  don't  waste  your  time 
trying  to  paint  pictures,  for  there  are  perhaps  as  many  men 
and  women  as  the  world  needs  painting  pictures.  Of  course 
there  will  be  some  among  you  who  cannot  help  painting, 
who  are  drawn  to  it  and  driven  to  it  by  some  inner  force 
stronger  than  you,  but  if  that  impulse  is  not  too  strong, 
apply  your  knowledge  in  art  to  some  domestic  process  if  it 
is  only  a  patchwork  quilt.  Make  it  hold  all  you  have  learned, 
make  it  more  beautiful  than  any  quilt  you  have  ever  seen, 
and  your  art  study  will  have  been  justified  because  you  have 
applied  it." 

When  I  went  home  I  found  that  "pulled  rugs"  was  the 
favorite  home  industry,  and  that  they  were  constantly  sold, 
although  to  my  mind  they  are  abominably  ugly.  I  decided 
to  see  how  good  a  rug  I  could  make,  so  I  bought  coarse 
serge  of  good  colors,  cut  it  into  narrow  strips,  studied  out  a 
suitable  design,  and  made  it.  Now  •!  have  seven  women 
working  for  me  and  every  rug  is  sold,  sometimes  before  it  is 
finished.  I  am  glad  you  like  them  well  enough  to  try  one. 

Yours  very  truly, 


I  think  we  two,  the  lecturer  and  the  pupil, 
laughed  together,  although  we  were  several  hun- 
dred miles  apart,  and  that  my  joy  was  the  greater 
of  the  two. 

The  work  of  "The  Associated  Artists"  went  on 
in  constantly  enlarging  lines  of  artistic  experiment. 
We  added  interior  decoration  to  our  list  of  accom- 
plishments, and  had  much  to  do  with  making  that 
form  of  art  a  profession  for  women.  Women  were 
not  then  and  perhaps  are  not  now  sufficiently  in- 
structed in  art  knowledge  to  be  equal  to  the  in- 
terior finishing  and  furnishing  of  what  may  be 
420 


POSTLUDE 

called  mansions,  meaning  edifices  of  an  importance 
so  far  beyond  domesticity  as  to  bring  them  into 
an  official  or  semi-official  category.  Domestic  in- 
teriors, however,  fall  naturally  within  the  grasp 
of  women,  and  I  look  forward  to  the  time  when 
the  education  and  training  of  women  decorators 
will  fit  them  for  public  as  well  as  for  private 
patronage. 

Facilities  for  such  study  are  increasing,  and 
my  earnest  and  open-eyed  student  may  have  ac- 
cess to  museums  and  libraries  which  give  both 
theory  and  history,  with  illuminatory  illustra- 
tions of  the  art. 

The  Misses  Hewitt,  granddaughters  of  Peter 
Cooper,  who  are  the  capable  inheritors  of  that 
great  public  benefaction,  "The  Cooper  Union," 
have  established  within  it  a  cabinetmaking  de- 
partment which  affords  instruction  in  mechanical 
and  architectural  drawing,  and  includes  an  ex- 
haustive library  and  museum  of  examples  of  the 
best  in  ancient  and  modern  furniture;  it  is  a  veri- 
table lighthouse  to  groping  students. 

It  should  be  as  much  a  matter  of  course  for 
a  woman  to  be  educated  with  reference  to  a  pro- 
fession as  for  a  boy  to  prepare  himself  by  special 
study  for  his  future.  Present  life  demands  trained 
labor  from  every  member  of  society,  and  if  a 
woman  does  not  marry  she  has  every  incitement  to 
become  an  earner.  Even  if  a  girl  marries,  there  are 
two  periods  in  her  life  when  it  is  important  to  her- 
421 


YESTERDAYS 

self  and  the  world  that  she  should  do  something 
well.  One  comes  in  a  prolonged  girlhood,  a  period 
of  uncertainty  which  is  apt  to  be  restless  and  un- 
happy if  entirely  devoid  of  the  interest  of  doing; 
the  other  is  the  time  when  the  children  are  grown 
up  and  the  experienced  and  intelligent  mother 
has  no  alternative  but  to  place  her  abilities  at  the 
service  of  organized  charity,  the  latter  being  often 
over-provided  with  capable  helpers.  In  short, 
it  seems  to  me  that  every  woman  as  well  as  man 
should  have  special  training  in  some  craft  or  pro- 
fession, so  that  her  life  may  not  become,  at  some 
unfortunate  period,  a  burden  to  herself  and  to 
others.  This  is  a  long  digression,  but  it  belongs 
to  the  time  of  my  life  when  I  saw  that  changed 
conditions  demanded  a  certain  preparedness  which 
had  not  been  necessary  to  previous  generations. 

Nothing  could  better  emphasize  the  difference 
between  the  leisure  habit  of  women  in  the  past 
and  the  usefulness  of  to-day  than  an  exclamation 
of  Mrs.  Custer  at  a  luncheon  in  my  house,  when 
old  conditions  still  had  their  influence.  We  were 
a  company  of  perhaps  a  dozen  authors,  editors, 
writers,  artists,  and  the  like — Mrs.  Custer  her- 
self, Mrs.  Dodge,  Kate  Field,  Mrs.  Sangster,  Kate 
Douglas  Wiggin,  and  others — all  good  friends  and 
all  busy  and  capable  women.  Mrs.  Custer  looked 
across  the  table.  "Why,"  said  she,  "we  are  all 
working-women;  not  a  lady  among  us!" 

The  period  which  followed  the  twenty  years  of 
422 


POSTLUDE 

my  middle  life  and  its  activities  brought  me  to  the 
verge  of  the  meagerly  peopled  land  of  old  age,  and 
although  shorn  of  much  that  had  interested  and 
occupied  me,  these  were  far  from  being  unhappy 
years.  We  traveled  very  constantly,  my  dear 
man  and  I,  far  and  wide  over  our  own  country; 
partly  because  it  held  all  that  was  dear  to  us, 
partly  because  we  felt  competent  to  judge  it  by 
comparison  with  other  countries  of  the  earth,  and 
partly  to  see  if  it  held  anywhere  a  climate  that 
was  perfection  and  people  whose  small  differences 
were  stimulating.  We  found  them — all  sorts  of 
climates  with  their  variously  flavored  virtues,  and 
all  sorts  of  people  grafted  and  grown  on  our  pure 
American  stock.  Our  children  were  almost  middle- 
aged  people,  and  our  grandchildren  were  young 
folks  out  in  the  world,  and  we  were  walking  on 
its  farther  edge.  The  backward  view  was  very 
pleasant  and  we  held  each  other's  hands  as  we 
looked  forward.  I  was  as  much  in  love  with 
women  as  ever,  and  cared  as  much  for  what 
should  befall  them.  My  own  past  experiences 
and  efforts  gave  me  friends  among  the  kind  of 
women  I  liked  everywhere.  It  was  a  sort  of  after- 
math of  my  years  which  I  greatly  enjoyed  and 
am  still  enjoying.  So  we  journeyed  on  happily 
together,  my  mate  and  I,  and  saw  all  the  wonders 
of  our  wonderful  land.  We  both  loved  travel 
and  people,  and  we  were  such  good  friends,  such 
old  friends,  that  our  companionship  was  company. 
423 


YESTERDAYS 

There  were  summers  and  summers  that  we  spent 
at  Onteora,  breakfasting  together  in  our  high, 
east,  off-looking  loggia,  looking  away  at  the  misty 
distances  we  were  no  longer  able  to  travel,  and 
talking  over  the  days  when  we  could  and  did 
climb  mountains  and  tread  the  valleys. 

And  then  came  a  time  when  I  could  no  longer 
say  "We,"  and  I  found  myself  in  a  lonesome 
land  where  no  one  remembered  that  I  had  ever 
been  young,  or  called  me  by  my  given  name. 

It  is  years  since  then  and  yet  I  am  not  unhappy 
or  neglected,  for,  blessed  be  motherhood!  my 
children's  friends  motor  out  to  dear  old  "Nestle- 
down,"  partly,  no  doubt,  from  an  impulse  of  kind- 
ness, and  also  because  they  came  long  ago  when 
they  were  girls;  they  flatter  me  with  attentions 
and  tell  me  how  dear  Mr.  Wheeler  was  to  them 
in  the  old  days;  they  praise  everything  within 
and  without  the  old  home;  they  wonder  at  the 
trees,  the  great  tulip-tree,  the  wide  arches  of  the 
"weeping"  beech,  and  the  tall,  feathery  spruce 
and  tamaracks,  every  one  of  which  I  planted; 
they  fill  the  motor  with  big  boxes  of  peonies  the 
roots  of  which  came  from  the  old  Delaware  farm, 
and  the  rare  lemon-lilies  which  I  put  into  the 
ground  seventy  years  ago;  and  as  they  drive 
away,  waving  their  hands  from  the  turn  of  the 
highroad,  I  step  back  into  the  sweet  flower- 
brightened  rooms  filled  with  shadowy  men  and 
424 


POSTLUDE 

women  who  were  some  of  them  beautiful  and 
some  of  them  brilliant,  and  all  of  them  well- 
beloved  friends  of  my  dear  man  and  me. 

In  retracing  the  long  pathway  of  my  life  as  I 
have  been  doing  the  past  few  months,  I  find  cause 
for  surprise  at  its  varied  aspects  and  changes, 
and  more  than  all  at  its  fullness  of  companionship. 
There  is  a  stilled  chorus  of  voices  shut  in  the  small 
trunk  where  for  many  years  I  have  laid  away  my 
letters,  voices  which  made  music  for  the  world  as 
well  as  for  me  during  those  busy  years.  In  the 
quiet  of  these  latter  days  I  have  been  hearing 
them  again,  rising  up  one  after  another  with 
familiar  tones  and  personal  accents.  Here  is  a 
little  voice  from  one  of  McEntee's  letters  writ- 
ten from  Rome  in  1860  during  his  first  trip 
abroad. 

"I  think  better  of  our  art,  of  my  art,  after  seeing 
what  these  foreign  fellows  are  doing ;  we  are  paint- 
ing what  we  see  and  feel  in  our  own  way  without 
being  cramped  by  traditions.  I  am  satisfied  with 
it;  it  is  good;  we  are  on  the  right  track."  At  the 
close  of  the  letter  comes  a  little  homesick  clause: 
"I  know  what  I  want.  It  is  a  little  piece  of  New 
York  dock-plank  under  my  feet." 

Everybody  loved  McEntee.  The  pensiveness 
and  sincerity  of  his  pictures  were  a  part  of 
himself. 

And  there  are  letters  from  all  the  gay  young 
painters  of  the  Tenth  Street  building  at  home  and 
425 


YESTERDAYS 

abroad,  and  the  group  of  Century  writers  who 
loved  to  come  out  and  picnic  in  our  woods;  from 
the  more  staid  and  individual  older  men,  Bryant 
and  Stedman  and  Lowell;  and  from  women — 
dear  women — from  Mary  Mapes  Dodge,  whose 
very  sentences  jingled,  from  Ruth  McEnery 
Stuart,  whose  letters  laughed  and  were  unspeak- 
ably witty  in  darky  dialect;  from  decided  and 
forceful  Kate  Field,  whose  letters  made  you  do 
what  she  thought  you  should;  and  from  dear 
"Libbie"  Custer,  always  friendly  and  loving,  like 
her  dear,  inestimable  self. 

Why  should  I  even  mention  them  ?  Their  speech 
was  for  me,  but  many  of  their  voices  are  stilled  and 
the  very  names  they  bore  are  detached  from  the 
souls  I  knew.  Yet,  even  though  they  are  nameless, 
I  think  I  shall  know  them  without  their  human 
labels  in  the  wide  land  of  souls  toward  which 
we  are  all  tending.  Sometimes  I  do  meet  them  in 
dreams,  and  we  greet  one  another  as  if  it  were  but 
yesterday  that  we  lived  together,  and  I  am  always 
cheered  and  heartened  by  the  meeting.  I  wake 
and  for  a  few  moments  I  am  back  in  a  populous 
world,  instead  of  the  sparsely  inhabited  land  of 
old  age. 

I  think  the  world  in  general  hardly  realizes 
how  few  of  its  people  are  more  than  middle 
or  early-old-aged.  If  I  were  to  "speak  out  in 
meeting,"  as  uncalled  for  and  unexpected  speech 
was  characterized  in  my  childhood,  I  should  say 
426 


POSTLUDE 

that  one  of  the  inconveniences  of  being  old  is 
its  noticeableness.  We  cannot  escape  it  if  we 
venture  out  of  our  little  personal  burrows.  A 
really  old  person  is  as  much  out  of  place  in  the 
street  or  shop,  or  at  a  play,  or  in  society,  as  an 
unweaned  baby.  But,  as  I  said,  I  am  getting 
very  well  used  to  the  conditions  of  my  allotted 
country,  and  I  have  learned  to  stay  within  its 
limits;  and,  living  constantly  with  the  one  in- 
habitant whom  I  really  know,  I  am  getting  re- 
signed to  her  disabilities  and  I  enjoy  her  advan- 
tages ;  in  fact,  we  have  rather  good  times  together, 
my  old  lady  and  myself.  If  I  could  only  shut  the 
door  on  her  now  and  then  and  go  back  for  a  little 
space  to  the  woman  I  was  and  to  the  man  who 
was  hers,  it  would  be  delightful!  But  my  old 
lady  and  I  can  at  least  enjoy  the  past  together. 
We  flatter  ourselves  that  we  understand  that 
woman-I-was,  and  whose  life  I  am  at  present  writ- 
ing, much  better  than  she  did  herself;  we  laugh 
together  at  some  of  her  dilemmas  and  enthusi- 
asms and  mistakes,  and  at  her  small  vanities, 
the  things  which  gave  vitality  to  her  life ;  and  here 
at  dear  old  "Nestledown,"  which  she  planted  and 
loved  to  the  very  core  of  her  heart,  I  am  bidding 
her  a  long  good-by,  for  after  this  record  is  finished 
I  shall  never  see  her  again.  I  and  my  old-lady- 
ship will  go  on  quietly  together  until  it  pleases 
God  to  transplant  us  to  another  garden  and  set 
us  growing  other  of  His  crops. 
427 


YESTERDAYS 

We  shall  rest,  and  faith!  we  shall  need  it, 

Lie  down  for  an  ceon  or  two, 
Till  the  master  of  all  good  workmen 

Shall  set  us  to  work  anew. 


THE   END 

CM 
O 
CO 


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